Assimilation
by BabydollEyelashes
Summary: "My daughter is dying, and you are going to heal her if you want to live. The minute her heart stops, yours does too," growls Fire Lord Ozai as he at last releases a panicked Katara's throbbing wrists. [AU] [Azula/Katara-centric] [Mai/Azula/Ty Lee]
1. Royals Bleed Too

_**AN:**__This is my work of many, many weeks of writing out an idea I had. It's completely written and the longest thing I've ever written, and I'm intending to update every week._

_**Pairing:**__ Short Answer: Azula x Katara. Long Answer: Mai x Azula x Ty Lee meets Katara. This is an Azutara plot, but there are threesomes, foursomes and established Maizulee. Love and sex are shared between the four women so the Azutara is by no means exclusive. But, Azutara plot._

_**Beta: **__FanfictionVillainess_

_**Warnings: **__Yuri, lemons, abuse (physical and sexual), slavery, mild violence and polygamy. _

_**Disclaimer: **__Disclaimed. _

* * *

**ASSIMILATION**

* * *

Prologue: Consummation

* * *

It is dark and silent in the beautiful bedroom.

The room smells of incense and the warm night breeze laced with Caldera's smog, and it is late, late in the summer night with a blue moon on the rise and the foreboding black palace overshadowed by the ridges of the caldera itself, stained blue by the nighttime shadows.

Katara is bound, gagged and blindfolded, but not with the thick ropes and chains she became used to as a slave. She is tied with silk, soft, red silk against her smooth, dark skin. She is not sure how it feels against her, and she does not like not being able to see. The second thoughts come and go, but she knows she has no choice.

She tugs slightly on the scarves and is assured that they are tightly knotted to the bed. The scarves will burn easily, and Katara imagines that they will burn. They will burn bright blue.

Consummation. Adaptation. Assimilation.

A long, sharp fingernail makes a slow trail of tingling pleasure up the inside of Katara's thigh. And then it digs in, sharp pain that brings a wicked smirk to the rosy lips of the woman completely ready to dominate her.

Consummation. Adaptation. Assimilation.

* * *

Chapter One: Royals Bleed Too

* * *

The same day a twelve year old girl is taken from the Southern Water Tribe is the same day a twelve year old princess learns that she is dying. The princess is trying to detach herself from what she is hearing, the same cold, analytical thoughts she uses to cope with everything else in her life. But Azula is not stupid; she can hear them talking even though they murmur, _"I don't want to alarm her... she's so young..."_

Azula clasps her hands over her stomach as she listens in on the conversation with her father. She is in her bedroom, a few uncomfortable doctors refusing to make eye contact with her. She lies in her bed, feeling worse than she has after any training injury or illness.

It has been months of this, and, at last, there is a conclusive diagnosis. _And prognosis_, which is fairly grim.

And Ozai is livid. Absolutely livid. His wife first, then barely a year ago his son was disgraced and banished, and now Azula, _not _her. He will _not _lose her.

"She has several years," the waifish doctor talking to Ozai says as calmly as she can.

"She's _twelve_," Ozai snarls in response and Azula can hear the sharp breath of the doctor.

"She'll probably make it past twenty, if all goes well," the mousy doctor says and Ozai clenches his fist.

"I wouldn't call that going _well_," Ozai says, trying to control his breathing. He won't outlive his daughter; there is no way he can. _And what about an heir? _is the nasty thought he hates that he has. Now that he banished Zuko...

Azula contemplates her course of action and finally summons the energy to shout, "Can you please come here, father? I'm..." _scared_.

She does not know if she will get what she wants as she looks at the uncomfortable doctors in the room. The argument outside of the room silences and Ozai walks back into Azula's room, looking disheveled. More than he has been in the entire past three years of mess since Azulon's death.

"All of you out," Ozai orders and none of the doctors need to be told twice. At last, it is quiet and they are alone. "You'll be okay."

Azula just hesitantly shakes her head. And in a cold, detached tone she says, "You have no need to lie to me, father. I'm strong and you've raised me to be. I'm not afraid."

And then she bursts into tears.

Many miles away, a long cart's ride from the merchant city on the Eastern Islands of the Fire Nation, Katara looks around, scared and uncomfortable in her new clothes. Her hair is combed into the styling of the Fire Nation and her heart is racing.

"Your owner is coming," says the woman whom smells like the Fire Nation raiders who took her smelled. She wonders if all people in the Fire Nation have that scent; nice, pleasant, but it burns the nose somehow. Strong, aromatic, and to Katara, utterly unpleasant.

Her owner arrives and Katara is grateful that it is an old woman. She looks like Gran-Gran! But Katara knows it isn't how it seems. She may be young, but the black snow and red tide have come enough times for her to be wary of these people. First they took her mother, three years ago, and the raids supposedly stopped; Azulon was dead.

But they came again. And this time, Katara was taken, yet, no one seems aware she was a waterbender; they were looking for children, and they took five. Not Sokka, though. Not Sokka...

"Hello, Katara," the old woman says warmly, extending a weathered hand. Katara is nudged in the back by the slaver woman and Katara takes her hand. "My name is Hama, and I'm very happy to meet you."

Katara offers a hopeful smile.

xXx

Four years later, Katara fights back when they take her, because she was taught to _never _stand down and to always fight for what is hers. She screams, rips water from vases, from the air, from everywhere she can reach in the small beautiful house in the placid Fire Nation town she was raised in.

_"Slave_,_" _the soldiers called her, with every degradation involved on their tongues, in their tone. That set Katara off.

She has never been treated like a slave in her rural, central island village. Of course, she was not sent to school and expected to bow to authority a little more, but Hama raised her to have a backbone, and Katara had the spirit in her from birth, Hama had said more than once.

They tried to take Katara from her home, but the woman who bought her gave her a home away from home.

That was the twist; Katara has been raised by Hama for her entire life, but she is not here. She is not here and Katara needs her more than ever. But it is when she finds herself in pain and nearly immobile her arms twisted on their own to fit into handcuffs, when she realizes the sting of betrayal.

"I'm sorry," Hama says softly as Katara is pushed into the terrified soldiers hands. "You have what you want, now leave me." And she pauses as Katara can only stare at her in shock. "Good luck, Katara. Remember the first thing I taught you."

One soldier shakes his head at the ramblings of an old woman, and they take Katara from her. Katara does not cry and she does not show her fear or pain. She will _fight _and she will _escape_ before they take her to prison.

Hama told her about where they lock up waterbenders... and Katara would rip the heart from every person in the Fire Nation before she would be taken.

"What prison am I going to?" Katara demands, narrowing her wide cobalt eyes and trying to think of the ones Hama listed occasionally.

"Not any prison. You're going to Assimilation," the soldier on the left says with a sadistic little smile.

And Katara is left to wonder just what _Assimilation_ is.

And to wonder why Hama did that to her, after all of her loathing for the Fire Nation.

After Katara thought she was loved.

xXx

Katara finds out what Assimilation is the next day, after falling asleep in the prison cart after going over Hama's last few words in her head over and over. She sees herself in the meadow of firelilies, watching them bloom as a young girl and breathing in their aroma before they were blackened.

The waterbender was only thirteen when she learned the true reality of what it meant. She had been with Hama for a little while before she started training her in waterbending. At first, it was confusing. Hama made her food and showed her to her room, which was not the cage Katara was expecting.

_"You're not to do work for me. I bought you because I always wanted a child, and I never had one," Hama says and Katara looks at her, wondering why she opted for a slave instead of adoption. Hama answers that unasked question with, "And I wanted to save someone from the Fire Nation. That someone is you. Now wait here."_

_ Katara quietly obeys, sitting at the table and trying to make her feet touch the cold stone floor. It is so _hot _in the Fire Nation and she is not used to it at all. Hama at last returns with a comb._

_ A Water Tribe comb. _

Katara tries to remember the terms of her first enslavement, but she was so young that it's difficult to manage since Hama never treated her as a slave. The information would probably be helpful if she could only remember it. But then she is torn out of the cart and into the blinding sunlight. She squints and can already tell she is no longer in the small town she was raised in, and definitely nowhere near her place of birth at the South Pole. She is put in handcuffs and one soldier holds out a canteen of water.

"Hold her, will you, Lee?" he demands, pushing it forward towards Katara's dry, cracked lips.

She knows she needs it, but she cannot help but find the way it pours down her throat and is ripped away degrading. After she coughs and finishing swallowing the water, she looks at her surroundings. On the steps of a beautiful yet foreboding building, guarded by a wall and in view of the... the palace. Katara has seen it drawn before, and she can see it from just over her left shoulder.

It looks more like a fortress than a place for royals to live lavishly like deities.

_"They aren't deities, Katara," Hama says as she pours her new daughter a cup of tea. "The royals _bleed_ just like you and me."_

"Why am I here?" Katara asks sharply and a hand collides with her face.

"You speak when spoken to," snarls the woman whom has just walked up from behind the soldiers clutching Katara and taken the time to smack some sense into the girl. "Didn't you learn that? You were sold when you were twelve, I believe?"

"Yes," Katara replies, trying not to sound indignant. While Hama held contempt for the Fire Nation and raised Katara to one day destroy it, she quickly taught Katara that she had to be respectful to authorities or risk reeducation and indoctrination programs.

"I'm sure you would like to know why you've been taken," the intimidating woman says, and she waves her hand for Katara to be brought inside. The woman rummages in her purse and withdraws a few silver pieces for the soldiers, who accept their tip and leave Katara in the slightly cooler building.

"Yes," Katara answers.

"I work with a very noble cause," she begins, clearly taking pride in her job. Which is probably, Katara thinks, disgusting. "Instead of locking prisoners of war from the Earth and Water Nations and insurgents within the Fire Nation up, we... polish them and put them back into the mainstream. They marry loyal Fire Nation people, have children, and live lives free of such violence and rebellion."

"Why me?" Katara whispers, expecting to get hit again. But the woman just nods.

"There aren't many Water Tribe people in the Nation at all. A handful of prisoners of war at the Boiling Rock, but the South Pole has run dry as a resource and the north is far too heavily guarded. So we've been tracking down as many slaves who were sold from the South Pole as we can."

"Yes?"

"You happen to be our first," the woman says with a proud smile.

_What an honor_, Katara thinks sarcastically.

xXx

Meanwhile, Ty Lee is touching a glass to Azula's lips and hoping the princess does not breathe fire all over her in response. Mai is in the bath, _still_, and Ty Lee is attempting to get Azula to drink something.

"Your lips are cracked and bleeding," Ty Lee whispers and Azula just averts her eyes. Ty Lee gently brushes her soft fingertips along Azula's sore, chapped lips and that makes the princess swallow.

She sits up slightly, her back aching as she does, and drinks the water. Ty Lee smiles faintly and sits down beside her wife, making patterns on the blankets atop of Azula's legs. They are bony. Toned from her firebending; she refuses to miss training even if it kills her, to even Ozai's dismay, but he does not stop her and Mai and Ty Lee are in no place to either, and they are the closest thing to peers after Ozai.

"I don't want to get up today," Azula says softly as she stares at the glass.

"You don't have to," Ty Lee replies and Azula contemplates snapping at her but knows it is futile and does not have the energy. "I was trying to convince Mai to come with us and we could go get new clothes for that party but we don't have to."

"Of course we don't have to. Because I decide, and I've currently decided against getting out of my bed," Azula purrs regally and even her frail form and the perpetual dark circles under her eyes do not detract from her embodiment of Fire Nation royalty.

Ty Lee knows she is also Fire Nation royalty, but she feels more like a dressed up poodle-monkey in a crown half of the time. And Mai does not pull off being a princess any better.

Their marriage is of an intriguing nature. They all were interested in each other, in the way that brewing hormones in a small environment of only women would be. Mai was intended to be wed to Zuko, but that didn't work out. She and Ty Lee had prowess in combat, well blooded, and were close to Azula. So close that they spent a good deal of time caring for her in the vulnerable moments she would not let anyone see, and, therefore, a marriage was made.

Azula will not be able to bear children, which only made the need for an heir more desperate. And it is funny how, in the end, Azula's worst predicament gained her one good thing: the ability to marry for love and not be forced to wed some man to pump a child into her.

Mai and Ty Lee, however, know what will eventually happen to at least one of them. A legitimate heir by way of loopholes and loose interpretations. All in the guise of providing Azula's happiness, because that is how Fire Lord Ozai is and that is how Fire Lord Ozai works.

Ty Lee, with a small swallow and tiny breath of preparation, continues, "And you're supposed to go to that meeting today but─"

"You're not a very good listener, are you?" Azula snarls in response, lying back down and closing her eyes. "I _said _I wasn't getting out of bed today."

"What hurts?" Ty Lee asks, not in the prying tone of one of Azula's horrible nannies who replaced her mother, or the worse doctors who try to prolong her life obsessively. It sounds like she genuinely cares and that just makes Azula want to throttle her. "I can try to help."

"Everything," Azula admits before sighing. "My legs are awful."

Ty Lee's eyes glitter slightly and Azula has always wondered why she so desperately wants to be helping. Azula does not know if it is love or something else misplaced, but she knows that relationships are utterly futile when she has at best five years left of her life.

"Well, that I can help with," Ty Lee declares, offering a bright smile that Azula cannot comprehend.

She moves her fingers, the path of chi memorized for combat, now used to help the one she loves. It does ease Azula's pain, for a little while at least.

xXx

Azula makes it to the war meeting; Mai and Ty Lee make it to shopping.

"Okay, this one or this one or the fifth one..." Ty Lee says, examining the elaborate robes as Mai watches, completely and utterly bored, flicking a knife open and closed and making the seamstress almost as nervous as if Azula were here. "Are you even paying attention to me?"

Mai looks up. "Second one," Mai says halfheartedly. They all look the same to her.

"I don't know if I like or hate political events," Ty Lee says casually and Mai just shrugs.

"I hate them, personally," Mai replies and Ty Lee giggles as if it is a joke.

Mai just rolls her eyes.

xXx

"Careful! If you do that again it will be the last time you hold a brush because you will no longer _have hands_," Azula snaps as Mai yanks the hairbrush too forcefully. Mai's eyebrow twitches and her lips move to snarl at her wife, but she decides it is not worth it. Azula readjusts on Mai's lap, her bones pressing against Mai uncomfortably.

"You're even more of a baby about this than Ty Lee," Mai whispers into her ear and Azula just rolls her golden eyes.

Ty Lee is currently asleep, knocked out instantly as usual, as Azula is mostly undressed and demanding that Mai brush out her hair, which is somehow impossibly tangled after only a single day. Perhaps the bending training, or something. She does not look well and her body is much more tender than she likes it to be.

"You're terrible at it," Azula replies quietly, picking at her fingernails.

"I know," Mai says flatly, tugging the brush through again. "This party tomorrow is going to suck, isn't it?"

"Probably," Azula replies as she shrugs. "It's for some dumb _assimilation_ project. Pet project of one of my least favorite of these _useless _politicians. I think it's utterly pointless, personally, but we'll show our support..."

Mai, not wanting to discuss any more, kisses Azula's neck and the princess is silent save for a small moan. Her skin is soft, smooth and warm against Mai's lips. There is a small rush of electricity that is not lightning and Mai sets down the brush gently on the vanity table. Azula takes her wrist and guides her hand to her inner thigh.

"Fuck me," Azula breathes, the situation shifting more quickly than Mai can fathom. Without waiting for response, Azula takes Mai's hand and slides it up, up, up along her skin.

Mai likes the sensation of Azula against her, but she always feels, although she refuses to show it, a bit afraid that she will do something wrong and wind up hurting her. Azula is stunningly powerful when bending or when in the few war meetings Mai has witnessed, but when she looks at her in the mirror, in her underwear, she looks so tired and fragile.

Her bones protrude, her skin is sallow, but Mai does feel the fire of arousal that she cannot entirely control.

Azula turns around as she realizes that Mai is hesitant, and straddles her. Her lips press against Mai's, fiercely, grasping for control, biting and sucking until they bleed. Mai is so close to quiet, _so close_, but not quite. A few moans swallowed by Azula, whom just presses harder into her.

They are stumbling towards the bed after a few frustrating moments of trying to navigate the position they were in. Azula's underwear is gradually disappearing and Mai is still in shreds of her nightclothes. Azula falls on her back and lies down as Mai kisses her clavicle, and then allows her lips to stray down Azula's naked body.

The princess's fingers are wrapped in Mai's raven hair when she is thrust into utter bliss and then feels so weak, so drained. More drained than she was when her father demanded her to be taken back to her chambers instead of finishing the day of war meetings.

But this is not the kind of drained that makes her angry. It just makes her... numb.

Pleasurably numb, almost. But not quite.

And Mai silently notices before attempting to help Azula beneath the blankets, to which the princess elbows her away and slides herself in. Without looking back, Azula wraps herself around Ty Lee, as if it is such a punishment for Mai's reflex to help a girl who did not look like she could easily get up by herself.

And then they sleep in silence.

xXx

Two days later, Katara wakes up in her uncomfortable bed in the house where she is being prepped for her debut. She is dressed, although she tries to do it herself. They make her feel helpless intentionally, even though Katara knows she is not helpless.

And Katara has no problem telling them that she is not helpless.

"She's indignant and has no clue of her place," says Lin, the disdainful woman in control of Katara, in utter disgust as Katara simply sits and stares. "She's not _ready _for a debut. She's not _broken_."

The leader of the assimilation project, Minister Zan, is not pleased with that response.

"Everyone else is ready, and _she _is the most important selling point of my reveal," Minister Zan says sharply and Katara looks at her feet.

"She's not ready," Lin replies, slowly shaking her head. But Minister Zan has no patience for that.

"She will attend the party tonight, as planned."

xXx

"I can't do it," Azula admits quietly, and she looks about ready to burn the entire palace to ashes. Ty Lee gulps timidly at that soft assertion. "Not tonight."

The party is starting in four hours and Azula is nearly halfway prepped, but she yanked herself away from her servants and sat down on the crimson chaise lounge.

"It's not like it matters anyway," Mai says and Ty Lee nods feverishly.

As if summoned by Azula's moment of weakness, in walks the Fire Lord himself. Servants bowing, Mai and Ty Lee bowing, quite deeply. Azula does not move and he looks at her with this glint in his golden eyes that she has grown to utterly despise.

_"I don't want to do it anymore, father," Azula dares to say at thirteen after endless doctors, healers and all in between. "There's no helping and I can't... if I'm going to die, I'm going to die."_

_ That enrages him and she sees something on his face that she has not since the day of Zuko's banishment. He grabs her by her hair and she bites on her lip to keep from screaming. Be brave, be strong, be the heir to an empire of blood and conquest._

_ "You will not die," he growls into her ear, his hot breath uncomfortable against her neck. "Do you understand me? And if I hear you say a word of it again... you will not like the results."_

_ "Yes, father. Forgive me, please," Azula says with genuineness in her tone, despite it being such a lie._

"Are you sick?" Ozai demands of Azula and she closes her eyes. He can tell she is too proud to admit it, particularly to him, and so he quickly makes his decision. "You two will come in her place," Ozai says, turning to the two other royals in the room, and Mai and Ty Lee do not object. Ty Lee's eyes linger on Azula, however, and both Mai and Ozai can tell she wants to stay with her. "If she needs to rest, she needs to rest. I'm sure the smart one of you two at least knows the scripts for the night."

_"Well invade the fucking Northern Water Tribe and bring me their benders," demands Fire Lord Ozai and he immediately realizes how insane he sounds. Not at all like the cold leader of a nation should._

_ Azula is more unfazed by her illness than he is. She stares at death without a trace of fear in her face, and he does not know if she counts the days like he does. Very few people know of Azula's illness, save for three close advisors and her doctors and caretakers, and those two girls constantly clinging to her._

_ "We do intend to conquer to the Northern Water Tribe but first we need to focus on the Earth Kingdom," says the bolder of the two advisors Ozai is addressing._

_ "I know," Ozai says, slowly shaking his head. _

_ But only the waterbenders have a chance at healing Azula. That is what he has been told, and it might as well be a miracle after Azulon wiped out all of the benders they had access to._

_ There are no more waterbenders living, imprisoned or in the South Pole. And therefore, Azulon decides to screw over his younger son even in death._

Ozai has Azula helped out of the room although she resents it.

xXx

The party smells of exquisite food, scented candles and the perfumes of a hundred noblewomen. Mai completely hates it as she tries to dodge any prying questions and keep up with Ozai's plans for the night. Ty Lee has wandered away from her, much to Mai's chagrin, but she honestly does not care at this point.

"And where is her majesty?" asks Councilwoman Rei, glancing around the party in search of the well spoken and popular princess.

"She's, uhm," Ty Lee says, her eyes widening.

And an arm wraps around her waist, saving her from the discomfort. "She's occupied with war things tonight. I'll tell her you said hello," Mai says calmly, her lack of intonation making her lies nearly as plausible as Azula's.

Ty Lee is so grateful as Councilwoman Rei is gone, and she kisses Mai passionately on the lips. It sends a pleasurable surge through both of them.

Katara watches from across the room, intrigued by the two girls who are clearly together, and who wear crowns of royalty. But neither of them is Princess Azula, of that Katara is certain. They kiss each other and it seems that they generally _like _each other, which is more than Katara can say for most of the couples around her.

"It's time; it's time," Lin says into Katara's ear, seizing her and taking her to sit in front of everyone.

Katara looks up and can see Fire Lord Ozai, and the two girls she had been studying while Lin told her she was not allowed to interact with anyone (even when they were poking at her and marveling at her _strange_ features). He is sitting beside her and they are slightly elevated above the crowd.

She tunes out most of his speech; it is self indulgent and nationalistic and everything Hama told Katara to despise. And then it happens so quickly; a knife from the endless buffet tables flying at her, at her face, a projectile from across the room.

Quickly, she seizes the water from her glass, not thinking about the fact that it will reveal her as a waterbender and give her a death sentence, and she cleaves the knife in half with her bending, watching it clash to the floor.

There is stunned silence, including from Katara. The man who tried to kill her is tackled, and Fire Lord Ozai slowly turns to her as Lin looks frantically trying to formulate a response.

Katara cannot explain the look in his eyes as he brings his own knife down on her hand. She screams and ─

Panic surges through Katara's veins as she looks at the awed faces of the patrons, once terrified and now completely transfixed by the blue glow, and how time seems to have slowed down. She did not _intend _to do that, she did not _intend _to heal the gaping wound on her hands and she is fairly certain that she should not have. She was already exposed as a waterbender, yes but...

Hama explained rudimentary healing to her, once Katara showed an innate talent for it. Katara was a prodigious healer, as Hama told her, but she never progressed and was never taught more than the basics. Her mentor did not seem to think it was important.

But she sees one of the two princesses whispering to the other, and then looks at Lin's wide eyes, and the thick hand on the knife of the man who cut her. Everyone sees. Katara has no way to fight and no place to hide.

When Katara is seized by the wrists, she is expecting it to be a guard, or Minister Zan or Lin, but when she looks up, is the Fire Lord himself, who had just stabbed her and now is grabbing her, which does not bode well. The party is almost silenced as he drags her away, and she does hear the music awkwardly restart as she winds up in the cold, shadowy corridor.

"You're a waterbender," the Fire Lord growls and Katara tries to swallow but cannot. "Answer me, girl!" He shakes her and she snaps into alertness.

"Yes," Katara says, deciding to say no more to him than is necessary.

"No one informed me that there were even any waterbenders left _alive_ in this country or _yours_," Ozai says and Katara prepares to fight, thinking he is about to kill her. "And if you would like to remain alive, I have an offer for you."

He tightens his grip on Katara's wrists and she whimpers as he takes her down the hall.


	2. The Slave Girl Has a Name

Chapter Two: The Slave Girl Has a Name

* * *

Katara is dragged down the hallways of the palace by Ozai, his strong hands gripped tightly around her small wrists. She does not resist, although she has to admit she is terrified of what might happen next as he shows no mercy or awareness of her pain.

She cannot believe she revealed herself as a waterbender. They are supposed to be extinct. They have been killed on sight for decades. Therefore, wherever she is being taken cannot be good.

The palace is both beautiful and deadly looking. Everything seems to be a weapon, or a trophy of war, and the walls are coated with thick dust. Katara glances around frantically, looking for _escape _like some kind of idiot. She strongly doubts that even someone as stubborn and determined as her can escape the Fire Nation Royal Palace.

_Particularly _in the middle of a gigantic party.

At last, they reach a bedroom, and Katara's eyebrows nearly touch her forehead. _No, no, no..._

But then she realizes that there is a young woman about Katara's age in the bed, damp with sweat and mostly asleep. Katara stares, swallowing a lump in her throat. That must be Princess Azula, and she certainly, certainly does not look like the vibrant ideal citizen she is in the propaganda posters.

She looks like a corpse.

Ozai turns to Katara and she finds her cobalt eyes glued to his golden gaze.

"My daughter is dying, and you are going to heal her if you want to live. The minute her heart stops, yours does too," growls Fire Lord Ozai as he at last releases a panicked Katara's throbbing wrists.

Katara looks around, agape, breathing in slowly and hesitantly.

"I'm not," she begins, her eyes flickering to the Fire Lord. "I'm not _trained _in healing. I don't know how much I can do without scrolls or instruction or..."

"Do _something_. Do _something _or I'll have you executed for being a waterbender," Ozai growls and Katara's eyes flash. She _does _know how to ease pain and help with bruises and small cuts. Maybe that will do her some good, she hopes.

Katara scuttles over to Azula's bed, where the princess is half conscious. Her lips are dry and chapped, and Katara instantly sees small, purple and red bruises on her pale, almost translucent skin. With a small swallow, Katara finds water on the bedside table and takes it into her fingers. She sees guards, who have just arrived in the room panting for breath, tense their weapons as their eyes are fixated on the waterbender.

"Where do you hurt most?" Katara whispers to the princess, running her tongue over her own lips and trying to control her breathing. Azula's is so... belabored. It is almost frightening how unlike the image of herself in public she is up close.

Azula squints at her for a moment, baffled by the cobalt eyes over her, puncturing the distorted shadows that were lulling the princess into numb slumber. She shakes her head for a moment and Katara's face flushes against her strange, dark skin in a shade Azula has never seen. And Katara glances up at the Fire Lord, who looks as if he is growing impatient.

"My shoulder," Azula says slowly, as soon as she notices the water hovering on the young woman's fingertips. Of course Azula had heard about the strong healing capabilities of waterbenders. She had read her fair share of outdated military textbooks and history scrolls.

Katara nods and Azula gently rolls down her sleeve, revealing more pale, bruised skin. And Katara sniffs in before touching the water to her and hoping and praying that it will work. The water glows, illuminating the room for a brief second, and making Azula's golden eyes flash. And then it settles as a small moan of relief escapes the princess's lips.

"Did it do anything?" Ozai demands, staring at them both. Katara contemplates using the water as a weapon before realizing that she and a few ounces of water against the entirety of Caldera probably was not a fight she could win.

"Yes," Azula replies, still gazing at Katara. "I want her heal the rest of me."

Katara could not be more thankful for that comment. _And Hama said that healing was utterly useless. _

"Let me see if she made any progress," Ozai remarks loudly before walking to her and examining the skin where Katara had held the water. The bruises had completely faded, but Katara knew her illness likely was not influenced or even slowed. Just relief of symptoms. "Good. Watch her with my daughter; I am going to get papers arranged with Minister Zan."

Katara takes a deep breath, looks at the multitude of armed soldiers guarding the door, and shifts the water to wherever Azula haughtily points with her slender, trembling fingers.

xXx

Katara sits silently through the documents being filled out. Everyone in the room is tense because it is the Fire Lord himself signing them. He does have a vast number of slaves, which are taken care of through middle-men he never meets. But this girl is much more important, and he is doing everything in his power to ensure her success with Azula.

All Katara wishes is that she could understand what he was signing. Diving blindly into _real _slavery ─ not what she had with Hama ─ is completely and utterly horrifying. But then she remembers the first thought she had when the Fire Lord took her to a bedroom, and she realizes it could be worse.

At least she will receive more practice and training with her waterbending. Despite the fact that the stakes of this arrangement make her stomach squirm within her and try to escape through her throat.

Finally, everything is taken care of, Katara is bought and sold, and she is shown through the inner chambers of the palace. The entire place is beautiful, but it seems slightly detached from reality, and eerie in many ways.

Katara looks around, drinking in her surroundings, wondering how long she can manage to survive here. Wondering if she can escape, and knowing that she certainly cannot.

She feels a shiver within her as she is led into a small room, in which the three princesses are lounging. That makes Katara's throat constrict in sudden fright.

"You're theirs now," remarks the stolid man who has been showing Katara around and muttering halfhearted descriptions of the locations, and telling her where she can and cannot go. It is mostly _cannot. _"Go inside and let them show you the rest. Learn best by doing, I say."

Katara glances at him for a moment, says nothing, and walks into the small living room. It looks somewhat cozier than the rest of the foreboding palace, but Katara does not think she is going to be getting too comfortable.

"Who's she? Ooohhhh, is that the waterbender?" Ty Lee asks, staring at Katara as if she is some kind of strange zoo animal. Katara might as well be, in Caldera, she supposes.

"Yes," Azula replies airily, eyeing with Katara with an awful lot of disdain for someone who alleviated so much of her suffering. But Katara is smart enough to grit her teeth and remain silent. Hama always told her she was too proud for her own good, but Katara happens to value her life more than her pride, right now.

"She's cute," Ty Lee remarks, as if speaking about a poodle-monkey. "I saw what she did at the party. It was freaky. I thought I was as likely to see a waterbender as an airbender..."

Katara scratches at her head and suppresses more words than she thought she could manage. _They're not as terrible as they could be... they've just never seen anybody like you before... _Katara reminds herself, although the anger still simmers within her.

First, Katara's cobalt eyes rest on Mai. She, strangely, seems the most approachable of the trio. Well, not _approachable_, with a face that looks like an intimidating statue. But she seems the least _hungry _for prey, and is watching Katara as casually as she would watch anyone.

Ty Lee looks excited, and in a way that unnerves Katara. _A somewhat sadistic way_, but masked by a cute little smile.

And Azula has her head on Ty Lee's lap, her molten gaze trying to overcompensate for how weak she is right now. She just finished training and she pushed herself too hard today. The waterbender _did _have an influence; Azula had far less pain for long afterwards. But it did not stop the symptoms from returning with a vengeance.

"Are you feeling any better?" Katara asks Azula, in her absolute kindest tone ─ something Katara is not the best at.

Azula blinks once, as if so startled by a question that any healer would ask, Fire Nation, Water Tribe or anyone else.

"Speak to me when spoken to, waterbender," Princess Azula purrs coldly and Katara notices a quite distinct difference from the half-conscious sick girl in her bed.

And that, is the last straw. "Katara."

"Excuse me?" Azula's eyelashes flutter and her dry, cracked lips purse.

"I have a name. _Katara_," growls the slave.

"Not anymore," is the last Azula says on the matter, and Katara clenches her fist and fights everything in her that wants to argue.

"Fine," Katara replies and Azula looks even more indignant.

"Kneel," is the princess's order, and Katara looks at her in confusion. "_Kneel_. Do you not know what that word means?"

Katara sucks in her cheeks. "What are you going to do if I don't?"

Ty Lee genuinely looks nervous at this point, and Katara thinks she can see a tiny smirk on Mai's face, but perhaps it is just the shadow and light from the window.

"I can make your life very, very difficult."

"I can do the same," Katara states and Azula's smug expression fades instantly. Katara's heart leaps in her chest as she realizes she has most certainly pushed a dangerous woman too far, but she stands her ground. Even if she loses, she will retain respect and dignity. Even as a slave.

"Mai, give the waterbender that glass over there," Azula says slowly and Katara narrows her eyes.

Mai strokes her chin for a moment, unsure if that is a good idea, seeing as none of them are trained in fighting waterbenders. But she reaches to her side and hands the glass to Katara. Azula stands up and Ty Lee's hand twitches to pull her back down, but she changes her mind.

"Make my life difficult, slave girl," Azula orders, stepping towards her. "There's your element. No chains. No rules... no guards watching..."

Katara swallows, wondering what the catch is, before Azula clenches her fists and Katara's eyes rest on bright blue fire. Quickly, Katara grabs the water in her hands and lashes out with it at Azula, who blocks it with surprising strength despite her illness.

The fight rages, burns on, as Katara thinks she might be outmatched, but Azula is tired. Katara makes shards of ice as Azula stumbles on her foot and winces, and suddenly Katara feels a sharp jab in her shoulder and she hits the floor, water pooling out under her face.

She cannot bend. She cannot move. Her heart palpitates with panic.

Ty Lee helps Azula to her feet and moves to kiss her neck before Azula brushes her away.

"I think I like this better than kneeling," is Azula's only remark as she looks down at Katara.

xXx

The first night is the hardest for Katara. She lies alone in a bed that is surprisingly nice, but still meant to look like a prison cell. Azula had her taken away after the outburst, and Katara wound up being locked alone in this room.

She walks to the bathroom quietly, finding the one across from the princesses' room. Being in the inner chambers feels strangely, and immensely lonely. The other slaves and servants have all retired to other parts of the palace, but Ozai wants her on demand in case Azula needs her healing.

He is despicable, in Katara's eyes, but right now she understands his motivation. He is a man desperate to protect his child. While Azula is just cruel and malicious.

Katara walks into the bathroom, and then sinks into the shadows, being overcome with tears at the sudden realization of what has happened to her.

She tries to stifle her sobbing, hoping no one will here. They cannot see her weakness.

Katara has her knees touching her chin in the corner of her room, trying to contain her tears but finding herself incapable. She presses her lips to her skin, trying to muffle the sobs that keep washing over her. This is _not _how it was supposed to be. It is _not_.

And then she hears footsteps and looks up quickly, wondering what she can do, and how she can defend herself. But it's the sullen, pale one whose amber eyes make Katara nervous. Mai walks in, gnawing on her lip, and sits down in front of Katara.

"I want to help you," Mai says, barely breathing as she examines Katara. The waterbender tries not to be intimidated, tries to be strong like she always has been. But strength at this point is difficult. It is so _hard_.

"Why?" Katara chokes, trying to stifle her tears, but they flow anyway.

"Because I know my way around here. And if you can save Azula, I'm willing to do whatever it takes to keep you alive. You're not doing a very good job of it so far," Mai explains dryly and Katara just squints at her. Mai remains completely silent and careless as Katara tries to rub away the salty dampness stinging her skin.

"What do I have to do?" Katara inquires and Mai examines her yet again. The waterbender does not appreciate the gaze picking her apart, peeling her like an orange, but she does think she needs at least one ally in this palace.

"I'll show you the ropes. Okay? I mean, I've been in this place for a really long time, not that I know you enough to tell you my life story, but I've figured out the politics well enough," Mai says with a shrug. "I think step one is not picking fights with Azula. That was stupid as fuck."

"Right..." Katara murmurs.

And she sinks into herself with a sigh.

xXx

Ty Lee combs the princess's hair very cautiously in the steamy bathroom. Azula leans against the flawless porcelain tub, her eyes slightly closed. It does make Ty Lee worry, upon occasion, if she is dying or hurt, but she _is _Azula, even if she is sick.

Even if it is so difficult to look at her slowly fading body, watching her gradually disappear. But above the surface of the rose hued water rise her beautiful, round, ivory breasts.

"Your bruises are almost all gone," Ty Lee breathes, having heard the story about the waterbending girl who was now being held in the dungeon of the palace. "It's pretty amazing."

"You don't sound thrilled," Azula responds, although she does not care much. She still feels weak, and she still spent her entire morning hurling. Just because her pain was gone for a few hours, and her skin is less mottled, does not mean a waterbender is worth anything.

"I'm happy. Maybe she really can heal you," Ty Lee says warmly, and Azula is silent.

"Ouch," Azula mutters, as Ty Lee pulls too hard and the acrobat apologizes softly. "I'm done with this."

The princess gets up and Ty Lee's expression flickers with brief panic that makes Azula want to burn her pretty face off. But the princess grits her teeth and steps out of the bath, Ty Lee grabbing her before Azula can protest.

Ty Lee guides her into their bedroom, towards the bed in the center, which has been freshly made during their absence.

And Azula is on it and Ty Lee realizes what she is doing.

Azula lies back, quite gently, gasping, her back arched. And Ty Lee vaults onto the bed, her knees scraping against and crumpling the soft red silk. She takes her wife by the inside of her knees and pulls her forward, their hips colliding.

Ty Lee moans in pleasure at that, but Azula's breath catches. Not in a good way, and Ty Lee suddenly feels very dizzy. Azula lies quite still as Ty Lee gently eases away from her, noticing the bruises already shading her ivory skin.

"I'm sorry," Ty Lee says quietly, averting her eyes.

"It's nothing. Let's keep going," Azula sits up and kisses Ty Lee on the lips, biting down, biting into her and trying to make her bleed. But then she feels dizzy, the bruises on her legs already feel sore. And Ty Lee may be incredibly strong for her slender form, but Azula always thought she was stronger.

She is getting worse. Azula is getting worse, she knows she is getting worse, and she is terrified of anyone finding out that she is getting worse.

"Lie down," Ty Lee murmurs in a tone that Azula cannot help but find seductive. "I want to do you."

"You're cute when you lie," Azula remarks, half-chiding, half-pleased.

Ty Lee just cocks an eyebrow and reaches over Azula to adjust the pillows behind her. Azula holds out one arm regally, her lips slightly parted. She wants to pretend she is in control instead of the illness consuming her, and Ty Lee and Mai both utterly respect and understand that.

And Ty Lee lifts Azula against the pillows, propping her up. Ty Lee sits up slightly, her knees between Azula's crooked, bent out legs, and removes her clothes, letting them fall to the floor. She is quite stunning naked. Much more than the _bones _that Azula feels reduced to.

They exchange a few heated kisses as Ty Lee's body presses against her wife's. And Ty Lee's lips slide down as Azula watches her with only her golden eyes. Azula inhales sharply, a partial moan accompanying the jolt. Her hand cups her own bare breast briefly, as Ty Lee's hand presses gently against Azula's hip, her tongue within.

Azula clings to the sheets, as if she could not control herself. As if she had the energy to scream fire or anything else that she once could, not long ago. She straddles her shoulders longingly, obsessively.

Ty Lee continues, continues making her feel _almost _alive. Azula tangles her fingers in her wife's hair, but does not pull, because she is not _that _much of a monster.

When it is over, Azula exhales slowly, pulling Ty Lee to her with the strength she somehow manages to retain. Their lips brush together, and Ty Lee moves to grind on her, moves for more, and Azula just lies down, averting her eyes, not wanting to admit how spent she feels.

"I love you so much," Ty Lee whispers and Azula does not know if she should answer or not.

Love was always difficult for the princess, but after she learned she was going to die, she had no desire to keep any attachments to this world. It would only making moving on to the next easier.

"I know," Azula replies softly and Ty Lee tries not to be offended.

xXx

Azula and Ty Lee have been in bed for some time when Mai finally walks in. Ty Lee clenches her jaw once she is aware that Mai was with Katara, helping her. And Ty Lee... Ty Lee would trade her soul, her _everything _to heal Azula somehow. But she does not like how much better Azula felt after just _one session_.

Perhaps Ty Lee just wants to feel useful, like her knowledge of chi-flow did before. And then _Mai_; at least Azula was relying on Katara for some form of relief for her chronic pain. _Mai_ is just being a traitor.

Ty Lee rubs her lips together and further buries her face into Azula's shoulder. Because Azula is _hers_, and although she was bound to both Mai and Azula, and although she loves them both _so much_, Azula is slipping away and Ty Lee does not want to think about what will happen then.

Mai slides beneath the sheets and begins to touch Azula, just gently, as if testing to see how much the healing session worked. Azula's tongue flicks across her lips and she turns from Ty Lee to study Mai closely.

"Kiss me," Azula demands quietly as Mai toys with her fingers.

"Don't tell me what to do," Mai replies and Azula forcefully kisses her. Ty Lee inhales a sharp breath of panic, but Azula does seem fine... perhaps the waterbender pipe dream actually has some merit.

And so Azula kisses her, fiercely and passionately. Hands touch her back as Mai's fingers rest on the inside of Azula's thighs.

Solace in sex.

xXx

The next morning, Katara paces, rubbing her face as she tries to prepare herself for her first healing session with Azula. This is the Princess of the Fire Nation, and Katara is expected to be her _sole hope _for survival into adulthood. Not to mention that Katara's life is now officially bound to Azula's forever.

She just hopes Azula is more pleasant than she has been. Perhaps she just was in pain; Hama always lashed out when her bones were giving her trouble yet again. Maybe Azula is not as deplorable as her ascendants.

But of course, Katara is wrong about that.

She enters Azula's room, watched by numerous people, and prepares to attempt to heal Azula once more.


	3. Tell Me Your Worst Fear

Chapter Three: Tell Me Your Worst Fear

* * *

Katara enters, cracking her knuckles repetitively. Nervous habit. Hama always told her it would make her arthritic, and then how would she bend? How would she one day dethrone the Fire Nation's leaders and make every person here bleed out? Katara does, now see that the royals are not better than she, and that the people of Caldera have faces and names.

That makes Hama's strong beliefs harder to swallow, but Katara is still angry about her life, her situation. She is still angry about her mother's death and being sold three times in her life like she is an object. She is still angry about Princess Azula's treatment of her yesterday even though Katara had helped her so much.

Azula is sitting on her bed, not lying there like she was when Katara first healed her. She looks less weak, but, all the same, it is evident that her body is gradually breaking. Katara may hate the people who destroyed her life, but she does want to help Azula. She does not want to see anyone suffering, even if they are Fire Nation.

They are mostly alone, save for two guards lurking, keeping an eye on Katara. But, given Katara's last experience with Princess Azula, she probably does not need the guards. Or maybe she needs her pet wife to fight her battles. Maybe her bending isn't as famous as it is known to be.

Most things Katara learned about Princess Azula have turned out to be propaganda and outright lies.

"I'm here," Katara announces and no one reacts.

"You two may wait outside," Azula purrs confidently, and it is strange to Katara that such a powerful, commanding voice can come from a pale, skeletal form.

"Are you sure, princess?" inquires one guard as they both stand, hesitating.

"I gave you an order," Azula replies and they both slowly, cautiously leave the room. Katara can hear them stop directly outside of the door, and she knows that they will be prepared to burst in at any moment. "I've never been healed by a waterbender before... save for yesterday."

Katara clears her throat, trying not to feel so uncomfortable. Perhaps Azula does not intimidate her, and Katara is aware that the consequences will probably not be dire, but she is not entirely sure who the princess is and what she wants. Katara just knows that if Azula dies, Katara dies, and Katara wants to hold onto her life for as long as possible, thank you very much.

"I'm the last one," Katara says as she walks towards Azula, her feet soft, padding against the cold wooden floor as if she is ghost. She moves to Azula and finds the water that has been laid out for her, and she thinks, yet again, about attempting to escape.

Hama taught her a good deal. Katara is gifted at waterbending. She could escape. . . She _probably _could escape.

Azula starts removing her clothes, which hang loosely over her frame. Katara's eyes widen and she leans back, nearly knocking over the bowl in the process. She does not know where she is supposed to look, but the princess does not seem to care as she winds up in just wrappings around her breasts and hips. Just covering sensitive areas, that now are invading Katara's imagination more than her inability to look away from the exposed skin in front of her.

"I know I look like a corpse, but gawking is quite rude," Azula purrs as she studies Katara closely. Katara's cheeks heat up as she shakes her head so quickly that her neck makes a popping sound.

"I was... you're... you're very attractive is all," Katara says smoothly and Azula gives her one disdainful glance before lying down on the bed.

"Mhm," Azula responds. "I'm well aware."

Katara grimaces at Azula's _delightful _narcissism and takes control of the water in the glass bowl. She slowly rises, feeling it on her fingers, connected to her element. Azula looks at her and can see a slight, weaker rendition of when Azula bends lightning.

It is the only time Azula feels powerful. Perhaps, Katara being a slave, using her element is the only time she feels powerful as well.

"So, when did you become a slave?" Azula inquires as Katara tries to figure out where to start on her body. Pain relief, Katara decided upon, because she still has no idea where she is supposed to go next.

"I was twelve," Katara says sharply and Azula's eyes flash.

And Azula became a slave and twelve as well, although she would rather die right now than admit it to the waterbending girl.

"Is it hard being the last of your kind?" Azula inquires as she feels the touch of water against her skin, and soon the gentle relief it brings her.

Katara swallows the angry words she wants to spit at her owner and remains calm. She focuses on the coolness of the water beneath her fingertips, and inhales as she thinks about that. Sometimes she tries to imagine the sound of the ocean, but Katara can barely remember it, save for fragmented memories of her childhood.

"Yes," Katara says curtly as she continues the healing session.

"Hm. It must be." Azula lies back, closes her eyes, and, thankfully, says no more.

xXx

Things that are disgustingly frustrating to hear when you are told you are going to die before the cusp of adulthood: _Everything happens for a reason_, _you're so perseverant, it's a journey, _let me take care of you_..._

Azula has a deep and passionate loathing for the way she is treated, the way she is referred to as _fragile_ and the way her father is so overprotective. She also does not like this waterbending girl, which Azula hates to think about, because this is the most relief from chronic pain she has felt since she was twelve years old.

She is currently being taken out to eat with her father, whom is extremely glad that Azula is able to even leave the palace at this point. He seems so pleased with his waterbender, and how she will _heal _his daughter, but Azula does not think that even the waterbender can stop the death Azula is condemned to.

Ozai is guiding Azula into the private room a little too forcefully. She does not struggle against him because, while her pain may be relieved from a while, she is not strong enough in her current state to do much without the use of her bending.

"I don't need help," Azula says sharply before realizing who she is talking to. Not that it even matters; she would honestly rather be executed by her own father than slowly be consumed any further by her own body.

"Of course," he says coolly, but he does not release her arm and waist as he gently sets her in her seat. Azula allows him to treat her like a piece of brittle glass because she has no energy to fight against it.

Eventually, he will get tired of hearing _I'm sorry for your loss_. Or maybe he will simply outlaw any mention of Azula's existence, like he did with her mother.

Azula sits at the table, trying to look dignified, and not so tired. She despises how much he worries about her, and how he treats her like she is _fragile_. Azula is _not fragile _and she refuses to be. Agni, all she wants is to not be treated like a glass flower developing cracks.

"How has your week been?" Ozai inquires and Azula simply shrugs. She does not know what to say, except, perhaps _I wallowed in my shadowy bedroom and occasionally got up to practice firebending, only to get humiliatingly exhausted._

"The same as usual, father," Azula responds calmly, struggling to swallow and trying to hide that fact from her father's watchful eyes.

He studies her for a while before looking away. "Do you intend to eat anything?"  
"I suppose." And the conversation continues, cold and making Azula sore and angry.

She does love her father. She loves him, and she knows that his worst fear is losing her, in the end. But that does not make his actions any easier for Azula to swallow.

xXx

Mai meets Katara in her personal rooms, having called on her to serve. But Katara instantly can tell that Mai did not order Katara for the purposes of using her as a slave.

"I want to help you," Mai repeats, hating how the words stick in her throat. This is not something she _wants _to do, but it is something she thinks she _has _to do, if it will help Azula. Not to mention, when Mai saw Katara stand up to Azula despite being a slave for years, it made Mai think that Katara was the kind of person who...

Who in another world, might have fit right in. If there were no war, would have been close with them. Mai hides that, of course, because she is unfeeling, cruel and void of compassion or desire for friendship. All the same, she sees herself in Katara, and also sees Azula's only hope at a cure.

Katara swallows and asks, "So where do we begin?"

Meanwhile, in the shared chambers of the three princesses, "Why is your face on my legs?" Azula demands as she is suddenly joined in her bed-prison of misery and hatred.

"Mmm... I'm a kitty," diverts Ty Lee, who is certain Azula is about to lecture and rage at for the simple act of lying down beside her. To sell her point, she makes very adept and talented purring noises and rubs her face on Azula's bony legs. The soft fabric of the blankets makes Ty Lee's bangs fuzzy, but she pays it no mind. "Why aren't you petting me?"

More ferocious purring, until Azula at last relents and strokes her neck once. Ty Lee then grins and sits up.

"Was that so hard?" she asks playfully before lying beside Azula. Ty Lee examines Azula for a moment, trying to keep her face as unreadable as possible. It _is _easy for Ty Lee to maintain a very small emotional range, yet still be _pleasant_, unlike Mai.

"No," Azula says coolly before returning to gazing at the ceiling. She has a blanket draped over her that she received as a gift for her wedding, her wedding to two people, her wedding that was joyous to everyone except those who knew the reasoning behind it and therefore could feel the poison and sadness in every step.

"Is Mai with that waterbender?" Ty Lee asks and her syrupy expression becomes sour.

"I don't know, nor do I care," Azula replies, offering only a shrug to Ty Lee. The former acrobat scowls momentarily before dragging herself up onto the miles of pillows and lying beside her bride.

"It bothers me," Ty Lee says, pouting like a child as she twists blankets in her angry and tense fingers. "It bothers me that she'd rather be... _you know _it just bothers me that she would fuck a _slave_."

Azula wavers for a second before declaring, "Firstly, we have no idea if they've even touched each other. Secondly, I'm fairly certain that's what slaves are _for_."

"Would you?" Ty Lee asks, hoping she does not sound too demanding. "Would you sleep with someone other than me or Mai?"

Princess Azula runs her tongue over her teeth. Hm. She thinks of the way cobalt eyes followed her as she stripped out of her clothes, or how the water felt against her skin. But she also knows what answer Ty Lee _wants _to hear, and Azula is not stupid enough to ever be honest.

"Of course not," Azula replies with a deep, calm breath. "You are jealous, aren't you?"

"I get jealous of Mai, of course I'm jealous of─"

"You get jealous of Mai, or get jealous of me when I'm with her?" Azula inquires as an unintended smirk sneaks onto her lips.

"Jealous of you maybe..." Ty Lee immediately blushes bright red, Azula's small and superior snicker feeling _humiliating_.

"What happened to polyamory?" Azula keeps smirking and no longer cares to hide it. She does quite like the flush on Ty Lee's cheeks.

"It's not like jealousy just disappears..." Ty Lee says quietly, seeming to be trying to permanently sink into the mattress. "I'm allowed to like you better if I want to. And-and I _deserve _you more than anybody else because I'm... I care more."

Azula seems to ponder that, as if it is not _certain_.

"People don't always get what they deserve," Azula says quietly, suddenly very aware of the aching in her legs. "Take me for example. I sometimes have no idea why these things continuously happen to me."

Ty Lee rubs her face and wishes she had not started this conversation. She feels very selfish for complaining about her romantic feelings and discontent while Azula is _dying_, when Azula was told when she was twelve that she is _dying_.

It must hurt.

Ty Lee wants to move next to her, to feel her heartbeat, but she is not stupid enough to piss Azula off.

xXx

_Azula does not know how to face Mai or Ty Lee with this news. In fact, she has no clue how she is supposed to inform anyone. She just feels tired, sore, unwilling to get out of bed despite anyone's attempts. It feels so strange and so agonizing to know that she has not even lived and she is dying._

_ She gets out of bed one night, although she is not supposed to, because she has vomited until all that was left was lime green and burned, burned like fire. Perhaps worse than fire because it is still eating away at her esophagus._

_ Even if she is embarrassed and hates admitting her illness, she knows she needs to find her father. She does, truly, want to hold onto him as tightly as she can and not let go. To maybe cry at last, like she has not since the day she was told of her imminent destruction._

_ She finds herself outside of a meeting room, after checking for him everywhere._

_ "I don't think it's possible," says a nervous, unfamiliar voice inside. Azula presses herself against the wall and slows her breathing to make it silent._

_ "Well, make it possible," says Ozai coldly and Azula quickly figures out that they are talking about her. Of course they are; Ozai seems to care about it more than the war at this point._

_ "There are matters I think you should attend to first─"_

_ "Like what?" Ozai demands and Azula's eyes flicker wide. He sounds angrier than Azula has heard him in a long time._

_ "Like the meeting with advisors and the preparations for the comet─"_

_ Ozai clears his throat loudly and the man is silenced. "I would gladly burn alive all of my advisors if it would save her. I would gladly sacrifice the power of the comet to have the power to keep her from dying."_

_ Azula did not think it would go so far. Although, perhaps he is exaggerating._

_ "Of course," says the very unenthused man, and Azula slinks away, no longer wanting to talk to her father._

_ In the morning, she decides she _has _to tell Mai and Ty Lee. She invites them over, although her father voices his brief concern about her overexerting herself. But Azula does want to live before she dies, at some point._

_ It is difficult, nigh impossible to get the words out of her chapped, sore, peeling lips._

_ "You don't look so good, princess," Mai remarks and Ty Lee squints for a moment, wishing she had commented first. She wishes she were closer to Azula than Mai is._

_ "I don't..." Azula trails off and clenches her jaw. And then she knows that she must do the brave thing, the action that is best for someone who would have been Fire Lord if it were not for her own body turning against her. "I'm dying."_

_ Mai and Ty Lee are silent, until, at last, Mai speaks up, "You're screwing with us, right?"_

_ Azula is breathless, her lips parted and her eyes wide. She wishes she had not said that, and she starts stepping back subconsciously._

_ "I'm dying, and that's all you need to know." Quickly, stunning Mai and Ty Lee, Azula runs away and locks herself in her room._

_ The two girls hesitantly follow and can hear sobbing through her door. They know then that this is a reality, and they are having as much trouble coping with it as Azula is._

xXx

"I had these scrolls purchased for you," says the Fire Lord as Katara is rubbing her eyes and staring at her breakfast. It is surprisingly adequate and well cooked for a slave's food; she imagines it is because, like Mai said, she has a commodity and no one can afford to mistreat her or let her die of illness like many slaves here.

"Th-thank you," Katara says quickly after an awkward bow that gets food in her thick, dark hair.

"I am also aware of a scholar of the Water Tribes, who gave me these scrolls. He is a firebender, but his knowledge of the North and South Pole is beyond adequate. I have asked him to try to coach you in healing, so you can save my daughter," Ozai continues and Katara nods, deciding to keep silent.

The feeling of how much she _wants _this makes her insides turn into knots.

"Thank you," Katara repeats weakly, unsure what else she is supposed to say. "I was just about to go help her with her pain."

"That's good. You won't be seeing your instructor until this evening," Ozai says before walking away slowly.

Katara swallows the phlegm in her throat and rises to go heal Azula, reluctantly abandoning her breakfast. It is true that she no longer has an appetite after finding out that she will be taught to heal. She remembers constantly _begging _Hama to teach her, but being refused time and time again.

Azula goes through the same routine today, stripping off her clothes. Katara is less embarrassed and intrigued this time, and is relieved that she can control her thoughts to a better extent. She kneels in front of Azula and picks up the water, gently moving her fingers across Azula's smooth skin.

She has vestige of beauty, beneath her prominent illness. And Katara looks at it with appreciation and a tad of admiration. However, she keeps her mouth shut and reminds herself that she is a slave, and that Azula is the enemy, even if she opens herself for Katara, and bares her greatest weakness.

Azula asks, "What do you fear most?"

And Katara responds, "Are these going to be interviews?"

"Interrogations," Azula replies softly as Katara moves to her ribs. The water on Azula's navel makes her toes curl, and she tries to conceal how her body has clenched with _very _unwelcome arousal.

"Right," Katara says, shaking her head. _This girl is... awful_. "My worst fear is... hm... maybe suffocating. Or burning. I guess, dying painfully."

"And the worst painful death you can think of?" Azula inquires, her eyes closed and her expression infuriatingly smug.

"Dying in a cage," Katara says softly, thinking of Hama's chilling stories she told Katara over and over again since she was a little girl barely able to comprehend the cruelty. "What about you? What's your worst fear?"

Azula says nothing, but as Katara briefly stops the relief from the glowing water, Azula says, "Interrogations only go one way."

Katara sighs and accepts that.

_Being forgotten_, Azula cannot help but think to herself.


	4. Let Me Brand You

Chapter Four: Let Me Brand You

* * *

Azula hates being examined.

The doctors are all very careful, they all make sure to administer every anesthetic in their arsenal, they all try their best to not upset her or cause her any pain. But she would still easily be sore for three days afterwards, sometimes barely able to speak if there was too harsh examination of her throat. And the anesthetic herbs they were so fond of made her head fuzzy and unclear for long afterwards.

But most of all, the worst part of being examined is the comments. They all try to be so _hopeful_. They say, _"It's not spreading as quickly as we feared." _or _"That lesion has definitely cleared up." _

Yet, in the end, despite their forced smiles and kind bedside manner, Azula is always dying. And there was nothing that these doctors can say that will change that fact. No doctor has yet to proclaim that she has miraculously been cured.

Her fate is unchangeable.

"That looks so much better," remarks one of the doctors, and Azula cranes her neck to look at the healed bruises.

Maybe the waterbender has some worth.

xXx

Katara studies scrolls and wishes that she had Hama here to help her. While Hama is not a healer, she is a prodigious waterbender, and she certainly could help teach Katara how to at least delay the progression of Princess Azula's illness.

She is waiting for the firebending scholar that Ozai promised her, and she taps her foot as she becomes more and more impatient. The scrolls fascinate Katara, but she does not have any water to work with, and so she does the motions with her hands and hopes she is not ingraining the wrong movements into her muscle memory.

At last, the man arrives. He has grey hair, and a very stylized, pointed beard. His eyes are amber, his skin pale and wrinkled. It makes Katara _angry_, she must admit, to know that he studies the Water Tribes as if they are spider-flies in a bottle, and proclaims himself an expert.

He will never know the reality of the South Pole. But Katara knows that she needs all the help she can get if she wants to stay alive.

"It is an absolute honor to meet you," says the man eagerly, and Katara cannot remember ever being addressed like that. Even if she was treated well by Hama, Katara has been a slave for so many years that she is used to being looked down upon.

"It's nice to meet you too," Katara says as he sits down and opens his leather bag.

It is filled with even _more _waterbending scrolls.

Maybe this part of Katara's new life is not going to be so bad.

xXx

Mai and Katara do meet again, and Katara sits beside her, breathing in deeply. Katara looks worn and tired, and Mai wishes she could pity her. Or perhaps not. Mai offers Katara the expensive wine she has been sipping, and the waterbender accepts.

She has never had anything more than a few sips of the cheap kind from Hama, and Katara thinks that perhaps it could be improved by some sugar. It is bitter enough to make her wrinkle her nose, but she was not about to turn down a kind gesture from one of her captors. One of her _owners_, even if that word makes Katara feel sick.

"So you met with the tutor for your healing?" Mai asks and Katara does not think she cares what the answer is.

"I did," Katara admits with a small, brisk nod. "I think that maybe I can really help her."

_Not that I necessarily want to_, Katara thinks.

"Good," Mai says as she studies Katara closely. "You haven't started another fight yet, at least."

Katara pauses for a moment. "I know I probably shouldn't ask you for things, but... do you think you could get me into a bathroom for a bath? I want to practice."

Mai purses her pale lips. It would be most unwise to give the waterbender that much water, to give her the opportunity to attempt escape. On the other hand, Mai has to admit she almost likes this slave girl.

"I'll see what I can do," is Mai's noncommittal response.

She does not know if she is being honest or not.

xXx

"Are you going to make me guess why you're so pissed off? Or will you use your words like an adult?" Mai demands in the sitting area outside of their bedroom, private rooms and bathrooms.

Living in the lap of luxury (Azula) is pleasant for both of them, and their life has very few flaws, save for the ulcer-inducing worry about the princess and her illness. And Mai finds decent comfort in her lodgings.

There can be privacy, and she can be entertaining herself with her sketchbook, until, suddenly, that privacy is gone, replaced with the loud, angry pacing of Ty Lee's feet.

"I'm angry because of all of the time you've been spending with the slave girl! It's enough that she gets to put her hands all over Azula's naked body! And you're clearly in love with her now!" Ty Lee shouts, forgetting that Azula is trying to sleep in her nearby bedroom.

Mai studies Ty Lee, sighing. "I'm not in love with our slave girl. I haven't even gone to bed with her."

"But I bet you've thought about it!" Ty Lee shrieks.

From there, the fight is an unstoppable force of destruction. Mai does not fight back, but Ty Lee screams and rants and raves until her throat tastes of blood and metal.

And then Mai's hands are on her waist, Ty Lee's face still flushed with white hot anger. When Mai's lips push against Ty Lee's, however, she is filled with white hot longing.

They move to fuck each other, the desire impossible to deny. Ty Lee is eager, until her stomach drops, and Mai sees the look in her eyes.

"We can't..." Ty Lee whispers as she glances at Azula's bedroom. She could be _dying _in there; Mai and Ty Lee can't be fucking outside.

Mai hesitates, trying to think of a solution before the fire in her lower belly dies.

"Why don't we wake her up to something fun," Mai says and Ty Lee smiles at the concept.

Azula is roused from unconsciousness by pressure on the bed on either side of her.

"Azula," says a quiet voice from above the princess. Her eyelids slowly flutter open, unsure what is happening to her right now. Her throat and insides are still sore from the invasive tests. "Azula, wake up."

Ty Lee. At Azula's right is most certainly Ty Lee.

"She's awake," says a voice at her left and Azula turns yet again, her head fuzzy from the sedatives the doctors certainly gave her an improper dose of.

Mai. At Azula's left is most certainly Mai.

The princess furrows her brow and studies the two girls sitting smugly at either side of her. Oh, Agni, Azula hopes she is not about to be smothered to death. Although, perhaps that sweet release would be better than suffering through another overly invasive set of tests.

"I'm completely hallucinating from drugs, aren't I?" Azula whispers, relatively confused by this. But lips against hers silence her from answering anything else. Mai's lips; Azula can identify them.

The fingers trailing along her arm, giving her goosebumps, are not Mai's. But the hand sliding down Azula's loose nightgown most certainly are. There is the brief sensation that perhaps she is going to be _dissected_, but then Ty Lee helps her sit up, their lips grazing against each other.

Mai moves carefully, trying to avoid the very prominent bones on Azula, despite Ty Lee having just grabbed her by her collar, dragging her closer. Their lips collide, and it is like fire, because _this _is what they both want, but they feel the need to do it through the vessel of Azula, else they feel like slimy traitors.

Azula does realize that, as her headache starts to ease and she presses herself against the pillows that line the headboard of her bed. This is something that has happened before, and she wants to tell herself that it is unnecessary, as she is enraptured by their hands on each other, their lips on each other, in front of her, pretending to be a personal show.

Ty Lee kisses Mai as she undresses her, inviting herself to the temptations of her wife's breasts. The roughness between them makes Azula angry in ways she cannot explain. The way Ty Lee grinds so forcefully against Mai, or how Mai digs her fingers into every part of Ty Lee's body without worrying about leaving bruises.

While Azula does like watching it, her fingers caressing the inside of her own thigh, she does find her stomach twisting more angrily by the second.

After Ty Lee's orgasm, Mai does notice it. And she thought that the acrobat was the emotionally sensitive one. Mai moves to Azula smoothly, gliding over the silky sheets, and she undoes the princess's bra. Ty Lee is so quickly beside her it is almost like a blur, not wanting to be topped by the woman she just spent so long arguing with, even if she is still in a haze from coming.

They are both on Azula, not reluctant at all, and the princess cannot help but moan, caught between genuine pleasure of two different lips on her shoulders and small breasts, and the very unfulfilled desires that were struck up within her like matches and flame.

Azula spreads her legs as her back arches, and she does experience pleasure from them. And the pleasure she does give to Mai, although she feels as if doing Ty Lee's work is somehow beneath her.

She can feel what she has missed, even though the oral sex is magnificent.

She can feel that she is so unable to fulfill or experience so many desires and sensations, because her body is broken and hates her.

Afterwards, Azula is exhausted and frustrated by the fact. She wants to be awake, she wants to revel in the fact that she owns them both and feel powerful for it like she did in the beginning of their relationship. But she falls asleep, no matter how hard she fights.

Mai and Ty Lee are wrapped in each other.

"I told you I'd rather have you than the water slave," Mai whispers and Ty Lee kisses her, leaving the taste of Azula on her mouth.

"I know," Ty Lee whispers as she nestles into the warm arms of her cold wife.

xXx

"Why are you married to two people? It's not customary in the Fire Nation, as far as I know." Katara asks abruptly during one healing session. Azula looks hazy, out of it. But Katara is curious.

"Because I'm sick. And I'm also the last of my line."

"So, you're sterile or something?" Katara asks bluntly and Azula contemplates punishing her. But the healing is feeling magnificent right now, and she does not want to put a stop to it by hurting her slave girl.

"That's none of your business, slave," Azula says sharply and Katara frowns. "Don't act so indignant. You know that you belong to me."

Katara averts her eyes and clenches her jaw.

She thinks she hates her job.

xXx

The first moment Azula sees Katara in a light other than a nuisance or another hopeful cure her father is wasting resources on, is the moment she sees her surrounded by her element. Azula did not bother knocking as she wandered into the room, and found that Katara was in a position to very easily slay everyone in this palace.

Waterbenders are not weak, and Azula knows it. Unlike the airbenders, who have been gone for so long that only memories remain, most people have heard of or even fought them. They are dangerous; that is why Azulon decided that they had to die.

It is the opposite element of fire, after all.

Azula is captivated by her nudity, by the water dripping from her body. And she hates, desperately hates, how much she _wants _the slave so abruptly. It is just a visceral bodily response, Azula tries to reassure herself. Even though she must admit that the healing sessions have introduced a certain level of intense intimacy.

Mai had let Katara into the bathroom, and Katara was overwhelmed by how deep and beautiful the bathtub was, and how every fixture was somehow _gilded_. But Azula walking in, Katara did not expect, and she quickly covers most of her body in the water, her cobalt eyes wide and intimidated.

But Azula is silent. "Who let you into a bath? Filled with water...?"

Katara does not know what to say. Her heart is thudding out of control with panic as she tries to think of a response.

"I let myself in," Katara stammers and Azula smirks and shakes her head.

"No, no. Don't lie to me, slave. You will regret it," Azula says softly as she crosses the room to stand near Katara. The waterbender is forced to be looking up at her as she tries to cover her body, cover how defenseless her naked skin feels.

"I'm not lying," Katara snaps, doubting that the princess even _knows_.

"Yes you are." Azula kneels so they are eye level. "I always can tell. You could say I'm a people person. Even if you aren't really a _person_... Which means, I can very comfortably do things to you that would be so sick to commit against another human. Like perhaps a little mark of ownership..."

Azula's fingertips light, just slightly, as she seems to be contemplating something very dark. Katara clenches her jaw, not knowing what action to take.

"I am a person," Katara snarls as she rises, not giving Azula enough time to get back up. The realization that she was about to be scarred and branded by this girl pulsated through her veins, and she acted without thinking.

She knows she will deeply regret the water she seizes and cracks through the air like a whip. And Katara honestly expected Azula to react quickly, like she did during their first fight. But Katara only just realizes how weakened she is, how slow her reactions are, and the fact that Katara has just slashed open the side of the Crown Princess of the Fire Nation's face.

Katara slips, falls, smashes her own head in the shock.

xXx

When Katara wakes up, she is in a bed, dressed, and not imprisoned or chained to a rack for torture. Nor is she branded by Azula.

_Azula was branded by her. Tui, La, every spirit Katara is screwed_.

She sits up and finds a note beside her bed. It is from Mai, asking her to come join her before Katara will have to face Fire Lord Ozai and face penalties for what she did to his daughter. Katara suddenly is grateful for her friend as she rises from bed and goes to meet her.

But when she gets to Mai's room. Azula is waiting for her. A slender mark on her face that looks as if it will heal, and certainly not scar. But her eyes are murderous as she sits on Mai's lap.

Katara breathes in slowly and carefully. She is quite unsure what Azula wants from her, or why Mai had invited her here, only to have Azula sitting, waiting, with a smirk on her face that looks... _sadistic_, almost. Something seems off immediately, and Katara's first thought is that it is a trap.

Mai does not look apologetic.

"Are you in pain?" Katara asks Azula, hoping and praying that Azula just wants to be healed, and that Katara is not about to be subjected to torture or punishment for her encounter with Azula. It probably was out of line for a slave, even though Katara refuses to think of herself as a slave.

"Maybe," Azula says softly, her voice utterly serpentine. "I was thinking perhaps you could ease that pain, a little bit. Given the fact that you decided to cut my face open. My father will certainly exact some brutality, but I... I think that I deserve my own revenge. We should be even, at least, if you're going to be healing me for years."

Katara glances around for water like a fool before realizing what the princess means. Mai still looks impassive, and Katara glares daggers at her. Why Katara thought that she had a friend among the royals, she has no idea.

Azula kisses Katara within seconds, not giving her much of a choice. Her hand slides behind the back of her slave, directing her in a dance of twisting feet to the bed. When Katara hits the mattress, she gasps, suddenly realizing how real this is.

She looks around for a stray glass of water, for a plant, for anything she could harvest an attack from. But right now, there is nothing. And right now... Katara must admit she is a bit curious about how this is going to play out.

Azula's lips touch Katara's again, and now the waterbender feels a tingling sensation inside of her. So long as Azula does not overstep any bounds, Katara does not see how this can truly... hurt.

"Do you ever desire this?" Azula whispers as she straddles the wide-eyed girl beneath her. It makes her feel _powerful_. When she has felt nothing but weakness sexually because of her illness, she now is strong.

"With... with a boy," Katara replies, swallowing forcibly. Azula smirks.

"And what can a boy do that I can't?" Azula asks mockingly and Katara does not know if she is asking or not.

"Certain... things," Katara whispers, swallowing.

"Would you like me to find something to penetrate you with?" That, Katara is entirely uncertain about. Trying to figure out if Azula is being genuine or not is difficult.

"Yes," Katara answers and Azula laughs, in a way that Katara is unsure if she finds off-putting or not.

"Mai, help me with this," Azula orders, still stunned that Katara actually seems to be playing along and not viciously resisting.

Katara again gives Mai a look assuring her that Katara thinks she is a complete traitor, but Mai, again, does not seem to care. But the two princesses do, indeed, find something to penetrate her with.

And Katara watches, rapt, in anticipation of what she thinks she is going to allow them to do to her.


	5. Let Me Break You

Chapter Five: Let Me Break You

* * *

Hama brought wolf-poodle puppies home once and it was the best day of Katara's life.

There were four of them and they had been left out in a basket at the market with a sign saying they needed a home. And Katara does not think she has ever been so happy and excited as she was when she saw the adorable little furballs in Hama's groceries.

Katara leapt up and down, shrieking with glee. Hama smiled faintly at the little girl she had begun to raise.

Hama always wanted a daughter. A beautiful, waterbending daughter who in her mind looked just like Katara. Hama would never let her go, even if she had to tear every single person in the Fire Nation in two with her bending.

"They're so cute, Gran-Gran!" Katara declared brightly, her mouth so wide open that a lion-vulture could make a nest in it. Hama chuckled, her lips wrinkling as she smiled warmly at the girl.

She was her gem; Katara was the only good thing about the Fire Nation.

And now they had puppies. Hama could not stop laughing as Katara played with them, pretending to be one of them as she licked her tan hands as if they were paws. The wolf-poodles tired _first_, which no one would have predicted except for someone who knew Katara.

"I love them!" Katara squealed for the thousand time. "We get to keep them?"

Hama watched her cobalt eyes sparkle and tried not to think about what would have happened if Katara were raised as an ordinary slave.

"Of course, dearie."

Katara cheered and ran to hug Hama tightly.

Hama gently pat Katara's head and smiled faintly yet again.

xXx

Years later, in the Royal Palace, Katara has a horrific headache.

That is the only thing that she can focus on, despite the pain throughout the rest of her body. She blinks a few times, her eyelashes fluttering until her cobalt eyes open and fixate on the ceiling above her. Not moving feels like the best choice at the moment, but she does scan the room around her for water, for _anything_.

She _will _kill them now, believe her. Hama taught her the merits of murder but Katara never could bring herself to do something like that. Now, however? Mai betrayed Katara, Azula hurt her with a second thought and Katara knows that she will die if she does not get out of this palace.

The pain between Katara's thighs is enraging. Katara wants Azula and Mai to _pay _for what they did to her, but Katara strongly doubts that will happen. No...

She strongly doubts that it will happen if she does not do something about it.

_Azula's lips touch Katara's again, and now the waterbender feels a tingling sensation inside of her. So long as Azula does not overstep any bounds, Katara does not see how this can truly... hurt._

_ "Do you ever desire this?" Azula whispers as she straddles the wide-eyed girl beneath her. It makes her feel powerful. When she has felt nothing but weakness sexually because of her illness, she now is strong. _

_ "With... with a boy," Katara replies, swallowing forcibly. Azula smirks._

_ "And what can a boy do that I can't?" Azula asks mockingly and Katara does not know if she is asking or not._

_ "Certain... things," Katara whispers, swallowing._

_ "Would you like me to find something to penetrate you with?" That, Katara is entirely uncertain about. Trying to figure out if Azula is being genuine or not is difficult._

_ "Yes," Katara answers and Azula laughs, in a way that Katara is unsure if she finds off-putting or not._

_ "Mai, help me with this," Azula orders, still stunned that Katara actually seems to be playing along and not viciously resisting._

_ Katara again gives Mai a look assuring her that Katara thinks she is a complete traitor, but Mai, again, does not seem to care. But the two princesses do, indeed, find something to penetrate her with._

_ And Katara watches, rapt, in anticipation of what she thinks she is going to allow them to do to her. Her eyes begin to drift as Mai promptly helps Azula; Katara needs to find something to fight with, but she has no idea what to use._

_ Any curiosity she felt before is gone the moment Azula descends on her like a wild predator with calculated eyes, and Mai pins Katara's wrists down with the blades of two knives gently set atop them as reminder of what will happen if she tries to break free._

Katara glares forward. There is no playing good slave girl anymore. There is no helplessness. Katara is going to fight back.

When the Fire Nation healer comes to check on Katara, on the damage Azula and Mai did, she instantly leaps to her feet. It hurts, but the pain numbs as soon as the adrenaline kicks in.

Katara grabs the cold compress that the Fire Nation healer had made and tears the water from it. She slashes two bloody red gashes in the cheek of the screaming healer, and begins to run, run, run. Katara dashes through the halls, knowing exactly where she must go.

She _knows _that once she leaves the living quarters she is entering dangerous land, but she does not intend to stop until there is no way her enemies could have pursued her.

Katara feels her heart swell with excitement as she keeps the weapon of water tightly in her hands and runs, runs, runs.

But she is forced to stop when a whip of fire knocks the water from her hands, and the sharp burning sensation makes her yelp and cradle her burnt skin.

Katara takes a deep breath and tries to ignore the pain; she needs to get out.

When she looks up, however, she sees Fire Lord Ozai confidently striding towards her.

xXx

Katara kneels before the Fire Lord and feels the searing hot boiling fury within her. She wants to unleash it on him even if it kills her. The pain inside of her body and the emotional pain and the confusion within her makes dying worth it if she can bring down any of these monsters with her.

But she has her lips pursed as she stares at her hands and does not stop groveling.

"Have we been _anything _but generous to you?" the Fire Lord growls and Katara averts her eyes.

_You have been the opposite of generous to me_, is what she would say in any circumstance but this one.

Katara just stares up and wonders why anyone would do this to her. She does not know why Hama sold her; she does not know why the Fire Nation thought it was okay to take her in the first place. All Katara wants is a means to escape, but she does not know what she would do next.

"_Answer_," demands the Fire Lord and Katara opens her mouth before swallowing her angry words again.

No. She cannot have lost her voice like this. No.

"No," Katara says quietly and it is ambiguous enough to sate both she and Ozai.

He stares at her for a long while and Katara begins to glance around for something to use to attack him. Ozai seems overconfident, which means that he likely is not anticipating for Katara to assassinate him with something from inside of the room.

But Katara does not see anything. She clenches her jaw and continues thinking as quickly as she can.

"I need you to heal my daughter. I think you want to live," Ozai growls and Katara is only half listening. "You must be broken. I had thought perhaps you were a well trained slave, since you are such a clever girl. But obviously no one ever bothered even the most basic housebreaking."

_Housebreaking_. Katara tries to refrain from spitting on him. Saliva... Katara swishes some around in her mouth and wonders if she could make it deadly enough. It dries slowly and she swallows.

No. That isn't enough to do what must be done.

Ozai continues, "You will be watched by my daughter's wives, who are your owners, after all. And I think I can arrange for proper training and proper repercussions for attempts at something like that again."

Katara feels the hands of the soldiers tightening on her. She summons all of the anger and courage within her; she is going to bloodbend. She _is going to bloodbend_. Only... Katara never was able to learn how. Even on the full moon; Katara could not.

It was a _mental block_, Hama insisted again and again and again.

But Katara does not think she has any reservations; nothing seems more appealing to her than bloodbending Fire Lord Ozai.

"Remove her shirt," Ozai orders and Katara feels that same tornado of sickness she feels when she thinks about Mai and Azula last night.

"No!" Katara snaps, and she moves her hand forward to seize Ozai by his blood.

_No_...

She thinks she can feel his blood for a moment, but it slips away.

_No_...

xXx

"Azula," Ty Lee whispers as she kisses the dry lips of her wife, "I love you."

They are together in their bedroom, and Ty Lee is waiting on Azula hand and foot. It fills her with an unending joy of the sweet servitude and the caresses Ty Lee receives in exchange for it.

"I know," Azula breathes as she leans back and occasionally glances at the food on her bedside table with mild disdain.

Ty Lee very carefully climbs onto the bed and moves closer to the princess. "Do you want me to have something else ordered for you?"

Azula stares at it for a few moments. "No. I'm not hungry."

Ty Lee tries to hide her worries about that statement with kisses on Azula's neck.

xXx

Katara has been given a _kennel_. That is not an exaggeration. _Kennel_.

But she accepts it with an undying pride that she refuses to let go of. Inside are the healing scrolls that she is supposed to study, but Katara strongly doubts that she will ever be allowed water to practice with unless she surrenders to these monsters.

Katara will not to that. She enters her cage and makes herself a very respectable bed out of the blankets offered. Across the room, Mai watches.

Watching. That's what Mai is told to do, and she does not protest because she is not stupid. Because she _has _protested just once before and she has never regretted anything before except for that. It isn't as if watching the slave girl is going to be very interesting or difficult.

Boredom is pretty refreshing.

Katara stands there, indignant, as if she has a choice. Neither one of them has one and Mai thinks it is disgusting and tiring that Katara has some sort of delusion that she is better than everyone else around her.

"What are you doing?" Katara asks passionately and Mai yawns.

Because of course Katara knows that she is going to be watched. And watched. And watched. And watched until she realizes that there will always be eyes on her even when there are not.

Mai glances up at Katara. "I have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing, so... whatever."

Katara's cheeks are flushed so _angrily_, and Mai has no idea why she is so pissed off. Mai also does not care enough to ask. Katara continues to fume silently as Mai clips her nails.

_Snap_. Katara stares with her nose wrinkled angrily. The clipping falls after Mai cuts down one slighter, quieter time. _Snap_. Katara shifts her weight with even more simmering rage as Mai cuts the next one. Mai taps her next fingernail and debates it listlessly for a few moments before _snap_.

_Snap_. Sigh. Katara grinds her teeth. _Snap. Snap. Snap._

And, finally, predictably, Katara snaps and loses her patience.

"_You _said absolutely _nothing _about the fact that _you _were the one who let me into that bath to practice!" Katara screeches and Mai sighs. "_You _did the _exact opposite _of stopping Azula! You helped her!"

Mai shrugs. "I had no reason to do anything different."

_Mai tossing it to Azula, not looking like she is having as much fun as her wife, but sure as fuck not looking like she cares about Katara either._

Katara starts sobbing out of nowhere and Mai wants to poke out her own eardrums.

Ugh. She has literally the _worst _job.

"I thought I could trust you," Katara ekes between sobs and Mai rolls her eyes.

"That was obviously a poor choice of yours," Mai says, shrugging yet again and prompting Katara to want to throttle her even more.

Katara silences her tears with the burning strength within her. She sits up, glares, and then embraces that kennel as if it were a beautiful mansion all her own.

She _will not let them win._

xXx

"You have been responding quite well to the new training," Ozai remarks as he studies Katara.

She feels _so _degraded, and she fantasizes about taking action on it, before hating herself for not doing that.

"Maybe," Katara whispers, even though she wants to roar that she will not stand for it.

Why? What has Katara become so quickly? Why does she _not _fight back? She cannot understand for the life of her.

For two weeks Katara has been treated like a poodle-wolf puppy. Except, when an owner bats a poodle-wolf puppy's nose and punishes it for peeing on the floor, it is _after _the poodle-wolf puppy has pissed all over. Katara has been beaten, has had everything stripped away and then cavalierly given back for no reason.

She has been beaten and told that she will face that _if _she does something wrong.

Katara has every desire to fight, but she knows that now she is under too close of watch. That is why Ozai assigned Mai, Ty Lee and anyone else to be constantly observing Katara.

"I like how you have been turning out. Things should become much more easier for you now," Ozai says as if he is giving her a gift. She clenches her jaw. "You will be such a good girl soon."

Katara thinks she almost breaks all of her teeth from the pressure.

They are interrupted before Ozai can mock Katara any further, and she is relieved. She waits for him to have her dismissed, shackled and taken away, but that does not happen. Katara again is treated like a piece of furniture that breathes, and as a messenger grovels before Ozai, she is witness to the entirety of the conversation.

"Your highness," the messenger says, not lifting his lips from the ground, "I have with me the reports on Prince Zuko."

Ozai's face curves in a strange way that Katara studies for as long as she can afford to do so.

"They are not due for another month. I have no interest in them," Ozai states coldly.

"With all due respect, my lord, the reports were sent early because Prince Zuko has done something that is of significant interest to the Fire Nation."

Ozai's eyes flash in shock.

Katara watches silently, absorbing and memorizing every word and expression.

xXx

Azula does not want to have another healing session, however... Katara has made them worthwhile.

Azula used to despise every second of her examinations and attempts at alleviating her symptoms. They sickened her more than her sickness. However, Katara is Azula's new favorite toy. _Oh_, Azula loves to play with her pet and Katara has no choice but to obey.

"I did tell you I could anything a boy could do," Azula says with a smirk as Katara gently examines new bruises.

Azula has only laid in bed for days, yet she has enough bruises to have taken a fall off of the edge of the palace.

"Don't talk about that," Katara says coldly as she reaches into her bowl of water. "Don't you dare."

"I was just trying to play with you. I don't really know my own strength." Another smirk and Katara does not hide her disdain. "My father used to say that about me to my brother. That I was like a little wolf-poodle who didn't realize biting wasn't just a game."

Katara's eyes light up briefly. "I heard about your brother."

"I don't know how you _couldn't _have." Azula rolls her eyes. "Don't try to emphasize with me or whatever pathetic attempt you're making to befriend me."

"I don't want to _befriend _you. You're not the kind of person who anybody would ever want to be friends with," Katara grumbles as she is prompted to return to her work by the glare of the guard behind her.

Azula scoffs. "That _hurts just so much_." She rolls her eyes again and Katara tries to focus.

"I heard about your brother being spied on. They think he's doing something important," Katara says and Azula sits straight up. Katara barely catches the water that the princess's shoulder broke when she sat up so quickly.

"Something _important_? That does not sound like ZuZu at all." Azula attempts a mocking, overconfident smirk, but the forced twist of her lips just exacerbates her pallid face and illness.

"Pr─_Please_ sit back down, princess, so we can get this over with," Katara says with the same cold fire in her tone as usual. Azula ignores her and neglects punishing her for speaking out of line.

"I cannot possibly imagine that my brother is up to _anything _important."

Azula gives Katara a look that gives her goosebumps.

Katara might just have overheard something she should not have.

The princess refuses to finish her healing session, and Katara does not care.

xXx

Katara thought she had enough after Azula, and how the princess used her apparent _offense _about Zuko as an excuse to make every moment of Katara's clean-up pure torture. Katara thought that the worst of her day was over.

That was before Ty Lee was assigned to bring Katara back to her cage for the night after the healing session. Katara takes deep breaths and keeps her head held up high. Hama taught her better than to show any weakness to her enemies.

But Katara still has soreness between her legs, anger towards everyone.

"Here's your food," Ty Lee says very sweetly, but everything about her feels like plastic. Ty Lee gently hands Katara her meal with a warm grin.

Katara expects Ty Lee to knock it onto the floor of the kennel, or for her to take some other brand of cruel action. But Ty Lee waits until Katara has the food fully in her grasp, and then slowly pulls away, still smiling as if Katara were a houseguest and not a housepet.

"I hope you enjoy your stay. We're really happy to have you," Ty Lee says cheerily and Katara detects something less than joyous in her tone. "If you need anything I'm totally happy to help you. Just call!"

Ty Lee grins for a few moments longer and Katara frowns. "Oh, stop making that face! You're so much prettier when you're not looking all gross like that. And the negativity is _seriously _sapping at me and my aura and my energy. You have the best deal!"

Katara does not know what to say to that crazy assertion.

"Night." Katara leaves it at that as she moves back further into the shadows of her cage.

"Stay away from Azula."

_That _does not sound happy or welcoming at all.

_That _sounds like yet another complication in Katara's new life.

Ty Lee is gone.

xXx

"Ugh," Mai sighs, rolling her eyes. "Ty Lee is usually the opposite of bitchy. No, I mean, she's a bitch and obnoxious but in the way of someone who is just too happy and loves everyone."

"She doesn't seem to love me," Katara corrects snippily. Not that she _wants _Ty Lee to love her, of course.

Mai has brought Katara her breakfast, and sits in front of the kennel with her legs open slightly. Katara finds it horridly distasteful, for Mai to be showing herself like that, as if _mocking _her new guest. But Katara eats as she waits for better answers about what she asked.

_"What does Ty Lee mean by 'Stay away from Azula'?" _That question kept Katara awake even more than how cramped and uncomfortable her new sleeping arrangements are.

"No. Because Ty Lee is jealous. Ty Lee has an obsession with feeling needed, and Azula has needed Ty Lee to take care of her for a really long time," Mai lists carelessly, beginning to sharpen two of her old knives she found the other day. "Ty Lee feels threatened by you putting her out of business with Azula or whatever. She'll get over it and maybe be your best friend one day, whether you like it or not."

Mai makes a sound that Katara thinks is laughing, but she is not sure.

"Do you not like her?" Katara asks and Mai does not shrug or sigh. Huh.

"Ty Lee is a lot of things to me, and less than half of them are bad," Mai states coldly, but Katara thinks she catches a hint of fondness. Maybe they do love each other; maybe they aren't just coexisting toys in the princess's harem. "Ozai asked me to do something with you."

Katara's eyes flash wide before she can remember to control them. "And I bet you're going to do it and it's going to be _so fun_."

Mai rolls her eyes. "I don't care. He said the past week you've been behaving well."

Then Mai seems almost uncomfortable. Katara is fascinated by that transition; each hint of emotion or humanity she sees in Mai is more interesting than _any _characteristic of her other owners. Katara cannot help but constantly wonder what made Mai who she is. Because she seems to be somebody different underneath her emotionless mask.

"And so...?" Katara cocks an eyebrow.

Mai shrugs again and twists her ankle around a few times, her bare toe gliding over the comfortable surface of the icy stone floor.

"And so he said to give you..." Mai thinks the words are gross and stupid and she does not want to say them, but they actually _work _when she is walking towards Katara. "Fifteen minutes of unsupervised playtime."

Nope. They sound just as awful and gross and corny as they did in Mai's head, and she wishes she had not said them. But she is already sliding onto Katara's lap; this part she rather enjoys, but the way she does not show it makes Katara feel nervous.

"That's disgusting," Katara snaps because _no, no, no _is she letting this happen to her again.

Mai kisses Katara on the lips without further boring discussion of how _immoral _Katara's owners are. Most slaves don't talk like that and Mai does not know if she finds it hot or annoying. Both. Definitely both.

She presses her hips slightly more tightly against Katara's and the slave makes an involuntary mewling sound, and more, because Mai knows what she is doing and she finds it a little bit less than boring. Less boring than watching paint dry or watching the slave and listening to occasional self righteous comments.

Mai says nothing.

Katara detaches and ignores that it feels good for those fifteen minutes.

Mai had good timing. She stops caring the instant those fifteen minutes are up and Katara is left baffled, wondering if Mai has the respect for Ozai to have done that, or if Mai actually wanted to.

Katara does not feel as violated as she feared.

Mai did not offer more than some touching and kissing that could be forgotten save for the lingering panging between Katara's thighs.

xXx

Katara cries silently that night in her cage when she hears the girls go to bed.

She does not understand why she had felt so curious before Azula and Mai hurt her.

She does not understand why she felt good things when Mai caressed the inside of her thighs.

_Mai hurt you, you idiot! _Katara screams mentally at herself again and again. _This sex is a fucking joke! It's not sex! It's rape and you should kill them for it, not just sit there acting confused!_

She does not understand why that passionate loathing does not help.

Because when she goes to sleep, she has sex dreams so often that she wants to scream.

That is how they want to break her, isn't it?

xXx

Azula has plans. And they are ones she thinks will entertain her to no end. She always likes to spark as many little spats between Mai and Ty Lee as she possibly can. And Azula _knows _that the two of them have been making out and that Ty Lee has been more honest with Mai than Azula.

It is time for Azula to make sure that they fight against each other but long insatiably for the princess. Azula also has had the most delicious of ideas. Katara takes such... _pride _in standing up to degradation and abuse with this _sickening dignity _that a slave does not deserve.

Azula has to admit that fascinates her. But Azula knows that if she shows Katara _kindness_, it will put her so many steps closer to fully breaking her new toy. That excites her.

Azula hates her illness and hates that she has to have healers. However, this attempt of her father's... Azula thinks she can make quite a fun game out of. And being brutal is not very fun. Azula very well knows from Katara's moments of _sympathy _that Katara is very easy to confuse.

And so, "Slave girl," Azula purrs as she toys with the padlock on Katara's kennel.

Katara glances up, and then tries to go back to sleep.

"_Slaaave girl_," Azula purrs again, lightly rattling the lock.

Katara ignores her again.

"You ought to behave better than that, slave girl," Azula mocks and Katara buries her face in her blankets. "Really, you do have a mouth on you... and I don't think a tongue is an important thing while waterbending."

Katara clenches her jaw and tries to hide the nauseated shiver she feels when she thinks about that disgusting idea.

"_Slaaaaave girl_," Azula repeats and Katara finally sits up. "Good. I'm making you a very kind offer. Come sleep in my bed. It will be _oh so wonderful_."

Azula's smirk leads Katara to believe that it will not at all be _oh so wonderful_.

"Fine," Katara hisses, and she knows just why she is agreeing.

Because she wants to be in the bed of these _horrid stuck up bitches _and she wants to see the expression of Azula's wives when Azula brings her new pet to bed.

Katara decides at this moment that she will destroy those three at all costs. And the best way to ruin them? Through each other.

Azula smirks. "Good, slave girl."

xXx

The bedroom is strange to Katara. It looks like the master bedroom of any couple, Katara supposes, save for the fact that Azula has two wives and not one. It has mementos, books, clothes. Pink outfits that must be Ty Lee's are stacked on the make-up strewn vanity table.

Katara can see little bits of all three girls reflected in the room, and she makes mental note to use as much time as she has in here to learn more about the enemy she is dead set on destroying.

Azula smirks as she gestures to the bed.

Katara stares, waiting for some kind of cruel act, bondage, abuse.

But Azula just gestures. Katara walks slowly to the bed, her skin prickling and her mind sharp and alert. Azula would not do this without ulterior motive, and that motive could so easily be violent.

But Azula just whispers as she half straddles Katara, "I've always wanted to try three."

Katara breathes in.

Katara breathes out.

xXx

In the morning, Ty Lee wakes and can smell Azula, Azula the most beautiful thing in the world. Azula is beautiful and perfect and everything Ty Lee has ever wanted. Ty Lee can feel Azula's arms around her and it makes her toes curl despite the lack of sex itself.

And then she opens her eyes and sees the _slave_. A _slave _in bed with them, and not out of some _kinky _and fucked up sexual adventure. _No_, this is the girl who is, despite being blunt and so, so, so far from sweet and attractive, is somehow alluring to Ty Lee's wives.

Ty Lee _loves _her wives and she _refuses _to lose them to a slave. Slowly, Ty Lee gets up as she sees Azula's knuckles lightly resting on the slave's hip. Ty Lee frowns, angry at herself for being angry at Katara. It isn't _right _to be jealous and it is _so bad _for Ty Lee's aura; she can feel the pink turning into poison. But who _wouldn't _be afraid and upset about this?

_Katara _accidentally hurt Azula last night during their sex. She _did_. She made a _popping _sound with one of Azula's bones and Azula did not even bite her or claw at her. Ty Lee feels an anger inside of her that is ruining her good vibes.

Slowly, Ty Lee leaves the bedroom, pulls on a casual kimono and goes to lounge around the living quarters as she usually does.

Ten or twenty minutes later, Mai has woken up and walks into the common area of their living quarters and sees Ty Lee.

Ty Lee looks awful, particularly for someone who takes such meticulous care of her appearance. It does not take much effort to figure out why Ty Lee has been awake all night without glancing in a mirror or nodding off once. Because being jealous about Mai and Katara was one thing; Azula and Katara is another altogether.

"Why do you look pissed?" Mai asks flatly, glancing around for the tea Ty Lee is drinking. Mai could use caffeine.

"I'm _not pissed_," Ty Lee chirps blithely but Mai does not believe it.

"Why aren't you pissed? You look pissed. I would be too if I actually was worried about our marriage." Mai shrugs, remembering how upset Ty Lee was about Mai spending extra time with Katara. "She's a slave. Azula has control issues and wants to feel strong."

Ty Lee pouts. "I'm not jealous anymore."

Mai _would _call Ty Lee out on how obvious of a lie that is, but she honestly does not care.

"So...?" Mai asks dryly.

"I am _so far from _pissed. I am _super _happy! I've decided I'm going to have a baby," Ty Lee states with a huge grin. She does not look cute, as usual; her lack of sleep makes her look like a complete maniac.

"That's..." Mai does not know what to say, but she does not want to be chi-blocked or make Ty Lee cry again. "That's a great idea."

"I'm glad you think so!" Ty Lee chirps.

And she is gone.

Mai gazes after her and wishes she had asked where Ty Lee had gotten that tea.

Oh, and maybe told her that having a baby was not going to solve her jealousy issues.

xXx

The morning is blissful for more reason than one. Firstly, she did very well in executing her exact plans with Katara. When she touched her, which Azula will admit she wanted to do, Katara was at such a visible war between pleasure and rage.

That was power.

That was a drug to Azula.

Ty Lee is more jealous than Azula has ever made her before, which is a delightful rush.

Oh, and this morning father has finally allowed Azula to be able to train, since she has few bruises and her dreadful examination revealed that her bones were under less stress than usual.

Azula is more eager for her training than Katara has ever been.

Her father removed it from her for weeks and she had never struggled to suppress her rage as much as she did at that moment. She has surpassed her masters as if she has been training for a thousand years and not a few months off and on again and she can _feel powerful_.

Much more powerful than exerting her control over Mai and Ty Lee, or over her _slave_. When she is firebending she is the most powerful being that has ever existed, stronger than the strongest dragon, brighter than the brightest sun. And she can forget the illness that she cannot stop watching consume her moment by moment, breath by breath.

She steps backwards and takes a deep breath, inhaling the vibrant rays of sun. Her eyes closed, she hesitates for a moment and feels time freeze around her, and then she moves forward, thoughtlessly moving into the first form and refusing to stop even for a breath.

The balance and clarity of the lighting around her, dancing on her fingertips, is the most intoxicating sensation that the world offers. She can feel the desire swelling within her and then that _need _cooling as the brisk morning wind presses against her skin.

Katara watches from afar, lingering as she gazes at the insane bursts of cerulean glitter that burn everything and nothing. The lightning of a storm at sea. She is allowed out right now, feeling like a pet in the midst of being trained and certain that is the intention.

Azula last night was... strange, and Katara struggles to comprehend what happened. The three girls were not brutal; it was not some kind of sexual torture for kicks. However, their inclusion of Katara in what must be their _marital sex _is a psychological torture that Katara can identify but cannot avoid feeling.

Now, however, as she watches the princess practice she is overwhelmed by the beauty of each step. Azula _is _fire; she _is _an unstoppable hurricane and Katara can forget the snarling at her when she leaned against Azula's fragile bones.

It is the most glamorous sight Katara has ever seen; the _color_, the _life_, the raw and unadulterated power. Azula's absent expression has more meaning and personality in it than any other look Katara has seen on her face.

Katara is still staring with a slightly slack jaw when she notices the nervously sweating tutor. He clearly seems concerned by Azula, but Katara cannot imagine the princess doing anything wrong. That _love _for her bending is one that Katara knows, and the similarity to she and Hama makes her skin tingle.

"Princess," interjects the tutor, "slow down. Take ten minutes."

She doesn't.

She doesn't _want to_.

She tumbles and cracks.

xXx

After Azula fell like a shooting star that collided with the Earth and lost its splendor, Katara has been assigned to heal her, of course. Katara cannot believe how much she _wants _to agree with Ozai about how Azula should have been more careful, as he had ranted and ranted when she had to be carried in. That, of course, is largely because Katara knows that if Azula dies, Katara will die with her.

And the healing is not what Katara would call fun.

But, on the other hand, Katara can understand.

Katara can remember the sheer joy that learning how to bend was for her. Being captured and sold as a little girl was one of the most horrible things that can happen to a person. But when she was bought by Hama and got to learn _waterbending_, it made up for that.

It felt amazing, and Katara could see that _love_. Azula had _love _in her eyes when she saw her fire and lightning; Katara did not think Azula would ever look at something or someone in that way.

But Katara says none of her thoughts because she does not want Azula to think that Katara harbors any compassion or forgiveness.

Throughout the healing session, Azula glares at Katara and the slave tries to ignore it.

Katara summons the water on her fingertips and begins to heal where Azula hurt herself worst, but the princess bats Katara's hand away and stands up. She is not supposed to do that, but Katara just leans back. She does not want to play along with this.

"Do you want me to heal you or not?" Katara breathes huffily, glancing at the bowl of water before looking up at the princess.

Azula walks towards the window, her teeth clenched and her expression wickedly venomous. Katara leans into the shadows of Azula's overly regal bed and tries to avoid suffering from Azula's rage. She is obviously angry about something, and it is not Katara's fault.

"No. No I don't," Azula snaps and Katara's eyes flash wide. Azula... her voice has _emotion _in it, even though the slave thinks the princess does not notice. "No, I don't, because this is pointless and I _am so tired _of it. I _am so tired _of my father being so _selfish _and _greedy _that he would do anything to keep me alive against my own will."

Princess Azula is _trying _to hold back her wave of emotions, _trying _to keep the tears out of her eyes, but, for once, she cannot.

"I'm pretty sure you want to live," Katara snaps, forgetting her plans to avoid more than one or two words exchanged with her captors.

Azula spins around, her hair whipping through the air. "_How dare you _presume to know anything about me! You have no idea how _nice _it is to live your plush little _slave life_! Every single day I feel myself gradually disappearing and all I want is the dignity to be done with this permanently! You have no idea what it is like and you have no idea how much I _despise you _because of him!"

Katara watches, rapt and confused, as the sobs break free and Azula seems to forget herself and her reputation. Azula slides down the wall and crumbles, hiding her hysterics by concealing her face with her knees. She shakes and it looks sickening with how pale and skeletal she is.

"_Every day _I am putting all of my energy into taking another breath when I was supposed to be Fire Lord! I _am a deity _trapped in the fucking weak body of some _sickly peasant_! I am a goddess with more power than anyone could ever imagine!" Azula's shrieks are as powerful as that beast, as that woman who can so easily control everyone in her life, that girl who has mastered lightning but is dying before she can do anything with it.

The princess slowly sinks further onto the cold stone floor until she lies there limply, sobbing and sobbing and sobbing like she cannot in front of anyone who is not a meaningless slave.

Katara has no words.

She does not think Azula would want to hear them anyway.


	6. I Can't Pretend Anymore

Katara has been given a bedroom.

It somehow feels more uncomfortable in it than in the cage. She sits in it and inside of her head relives the princess _sobbing_. That was not playing. That was not mockery. That was someone who was genuinely hurt and Katara cannot blame her for feeling that way.

Katara knows it must be hard for her.

Katara knows that royals bleed too, and royals _hurt _too.

Katara knows that Ozai has told her that she will die if Azula dies, and that she wants to live whether Azula wants to live or not.

She wonders if she would do it. If Azula reached a point where Katara could not help her, and maybe she should just… _do it_. It might be enjoyable to kill her tormentor. On the other hand, Katara enjoys being alive whether she is being tortured as a slave or not.

Understanding Azula does not mean justifying her actions, Katara reminds herself. It just feels pretty nasty that Azula's obsession with power comes from how powerless she feels due to her broken body. It would be easier to just call her some wicked Fire Nation beast and be done with it.

After she settles into her new, prettier cell, Ozai calls for her and she kneels before him in the throne room. The flames are so hot that Katara sweats. She wonders if he will see that as weakness. She wonders if she could make something deadly out of it, but that thought fades.

She needs to play along for now. Hama always told her to strike when they are weakest.

"I am not doing this to you senselessly, as you seem to think," he says. "I am a man who loves his daughter. When they told me she wouldn't live, I set out to prove them wrong. I am the most powerful man in the world and I will not let the only person I care about die."

He steps down from the throne and walks to her. Her heart starts to pound even though she keeps telling herself not to be scared.

She has no idea why he made that vulnerable statement. She feels wary; it must be manipulation of some sort, but she cannot think with the flames and the man in front of her.

"I am no stranger to loss," Ozai continues. "But she is different, just like you are different from the hundreds of people I asked to heal her somehow. I am not afraid of admitting that I love someone, I am not afraid of looking weak because I know how strong I am. You're shaking." He grabs her hand and examines how it trembles before pulling her to her feet. "See. I loved her before she was even conceived. I stole her from her mother and didn't care what that woman thought of me. None of the healers and magicians and scholars have done much more than maintaining her breathing. You are a waterbender. You are the last of your kind, maybe. I am not afraid to say that I need you."

"Yes?" Katara whispers.

"The healing power of the Water Tribes is legendary but forgotten."

"I don't know enough to save her," Katara honestly blurts out.

He examines her. "You can if you try to learn. You have done well with her so far. Yet, you clearly are not afraid of the chains of a slave. That concerns me. So, you see, you are threat to the only person I love. So I am binding you to her in another way. Perhaps you would rather have a marriage bed than a kennel."

Katara steps back without meaning to, and but he seizes her wrist and pulls her back.

"You give her whatever she wants, your highness?" Katara asks quietly.

"Of course," Ozai growls.

"She wants to die."

The only response Katara gets is the sharp and agonizing pain of the back of his hand colliding with her face.

* * *

Katara cannot help but feel afraid sometimes, even if she wants to be brave. She wants to pretend to be fearless, powerful and she wants to defy Ozai. Yet, she does not think she can. She thinks she will fall into the trap of belonging to Princess Azula and assimilating into this royal court.

If they want it, fine, they can take it. They can have every shred of Katara and do whatever they want with her, but they will never be able to take away her thoughts. That should count for something. Even just something small.

She should not have said what she did about Azula's wishes, but they are true. Katara hardly can bear to see a girl kept alive against her will.

But… Katara does not think she could kill her. Because Katara is scared.

She lies awake in her new bed and stares at the ceiling. If they want her life, they can just take it. She should have just offered her up and not even bothered with trying to heal Azula. Instead, she tried to hide from the truth, hide from the dangers here, hide from the disgusting and terrible people the royals are.

And, most of all, she should have never let herself witness a human side of Azula. The human side that bleeds and dies, perhaps, but not the side that cries. Katara does not think her heart will ever stop hurting from the scene she saw.

Katara stands up and starts pacing around in her luxurious prison. She cannot pretend to have hope inside of her anymore. All she has is bitterness and resentment for the world.

They broke her spirit.

She knows Azula will die and she will die for it, but she has already died alive.

Princess Azula killed Katara, she just has not stopped breathing yet.

* * *

"I know," says Ozai to Azula at lunch, "that I know better than to believe a prisoner, _but_ I do wonder if there is any truth to her words."

Azula immediately thinks of how she foolishly let Katara see her in a moment of weakness. She clenches her fists and hopes she does not hear concern from her father about the tears. How _dare _that grating slave go off and spread such slander.

Is it slander if it is true?

"What did she say, father," Azula replies, keeping her tone polite and calm. He looks at her and sees weakness and she wants to scream.

"She said you wanted to die," states Ozai, now fixing his gaze with his daughter's. That rarely happens, and so it gives Azula chills.

"Oh did she?" Azula says nothing else.

He does not know what to make of that, but he does not press her for fear of damaging her fragile little self. He does not want to ever live without his daughter, so he gives her liberties no one else ever would receive.

Bitterly and in total silence, Azula eats her lunch, even if she feels sick at the thought of Katara telling someone that, especially Fire Lord Ozai.

* * *

Azula knows she should confront Ty Lee about this absurd jealousy. It _is_, admittedly, quite sexy coming from a girl who tries to be friends with everyone (an impossible feat that Azula never has even bothered trying to accomplish). Yet, she does not want to deal with any emotions anymore. Never again.

"I hate her. Why are you so jealous?" Azula asks of Ty Lee, sitting down beside her. "How many people have I toyed around with who – of course – meant nothing to me?"

Ty Lee sighs and her eyes sparkle. She speaks softly but from her heart when she says, "You don't need me anymore."

"Of course I need you," Azula purrs, although it is a lie. She rubs Ty Lee's arms as she spins her proverbial web. "I need people to live for as much as I need people to keep me alive."

Azula hopes it works. It does.

"I shouldn't doubt you like that," Ty Lee says. Azula kisses her and can feel the dampness of Ty Lee's eyelashes. Ty Lee kisses her back and murmurs, "I trust you."

"You shouldn't," Azula whispers into the ear of her first love. "I'm not a very trustworthy girl."

That was honest of her, at least. Azula has slowly stopped caring what other people think or about the repercussions of lies over the years. She has been dying for so long that she no longer remembers what expecting a future feels like. Her only future aspiration was the throne, and she knows that she is not getting that.

She is not getting that. She is not getting that. She is not getting that.

"That's one of the million things I love about you," says Ty Lee, a smiling sneaking its way onto her face. She cannot help it. Azula wishes she could. It tires her to be around someone so blind to the cruel and repulsive world.

"Just forget she exists," says Azula, which Ty Lee knows is impossible, but Ty Lee nods and lies down.

They do not touch each other. They do not need to.

Still, Ty Lee wonders if she should try. No, she should not. She then wonders why Azula does not because her Azula is perfect and they are in love and this is how it always used to be before that waterbender started trying to heal her.

All Princess Ty Lee can do is stare up at the ceiling and let her anxious thoughts race.

Ty Lee has always been under Azula's spell. She cannot remember a time when she has not known that Azula is infinitely better than she would ever do. Ty Lee is a shallow pond compared to the majestic ocean her princess always was. So Ty Lee fears losing her.

How could she not?

Ty Lee never could do better, and never could break free of being enraptured by her wife.

And, so, now that she cannot stop thinking about how she is threatened by the stupid girl who can heal Azula—who can _heal her like Ty Lee cannot_—she thinks she might as well pitch herself over the side of a bridge of Azula ever begins to love Katara.

Katara might be Water Tribe, but she might be good enough to Azula.

Ty Lee does not think she will ever be good enough.

* * *

Azula does not want to go to sleep yet. She does not want to ever sleep, for that matter, since she hates losing any of the precious little time she has left. It does not take her a very long time to accidentally stumble upon her enslaved healer.

She is not in her room, for some absurd reason. Azula does not care to ask about it.

Katara looks bitterly at Azula. "I don't want to hear you lie tonight. And I don't want you to try to get in my head either. There's too much in there for you to manipulate it like you do with that empty-headed girl with the braid."

Azula purrs the complicated words, "You know I know you know her name. And I do not often lie to you. At least, surprisingly little when it comes to me." Katara frowns. "Something is bothering you, is it not? You look oh so worried. I need to know."

"You don't _need _anything from me," Katara snarls. Azula's eyebrows shoot up, because she thinks she might have unknowingly pressed a sore spot. There is something satisfying about that. "And I don't even know what you want from me if you don't want to get better."

"I want you to do what my father asks of you," Azula says, which is fairly honest. She does not care to honor Katara's requests, but she does not know if the waterbender will truly hear her lie tonight, in this late, dark, soul-sucking hour.

"Do you really?" asks Katara, standing. Azula prepares herself to smash Katara's face into the wall and burn her neck, but she stands in place for a few moments, curious about what her waterbender is about to do.

Katara realizes in this exact moment who she really is, and who she probably always was. She is the kind of person who wants to make the world drown. She is the kind of person who knows she will give in to these demands and so she will make them into her own desires.

Even if she used to think she was the kind of person who would simply not take it.

She presses her lips against Azula's. This is the moment in which she decides she will not resist curiosity and let this unfold, because she does not think she will have a choice soon. She will end up marrying this sick, terrible bitch and she does not know how to sort the thoughts out in her jumbled mess of a mind.

They do not dare move for a moment. Then Katara kisses her again and Azula still stands there, which infuriates the waterbender. She begins to walk away, but Azula takes her by the wrist and pulls her into another kiss.

Katara takes this opportunity to display her reckless disregard for all of the royal finery and shoves _everything _off of the top of a dusty display case. Azula leans back against it and Katara quickly moves two fingers beneath the silky gown of the other girl and to her entrance, teasing only slightly before burying her fingers in wet heat.

Neither lets herself moan because neither knows if this is really something they ought to be doing when they…

Slowly, Katara withdraws her fingers and begins to build a steady rhythm pumping in and out. It does not take very long to bring the princess over the brink and Katara decides that, no, Azula does not always have all of the power, and, yes, Katara would do better to keep her friends—of which there are none—close and her enemies—of which there is one more prevalent than the rest—closer.

She watches the other girl reach her climax and feels a rush of power for the first time since she ended up enslaved here. Maybe since she became enslaved in the first place. Katara forces her mind to be blank, avoids thinking, because she knows what a fool she is tonight.

Azula rolls her eyes, probably mockingly maybe playfully at kindest, and pulls Katara towards her by the bare, fawn waist. They avoid looking into each other's eyes for fear of seeing too much before their lips meet again. It is a short one because Azula is still breathless.

Katara reaches to take off her own clothes but Azula grabs her by the wrists. It takes every ounce of self-control in Katara's body not to shake her away and shove her.

"We should probably stop here," Azula purrs, which is certainly selfish and partially cruel and altogether unsurprising. "I do not think you meant to do this. I think you prefer hating everything that stands for what tore away all you love."

"I'm allowed to have lapses in judgment," Katara says.

Azula smirks at her and slinks away into the night.

Katara sits down and decides she probably hates herself a little over half as much as she hates Azula.

* * *

Fire Lord Ozai's fifteenth audience of the day is his daughter-in-law. He is curious as to why when she kneels before the flames.

"Fire Lord Ozai, may I ask you something?" she says. The formality of her words is something he so rarely hears.

"You may," he says.

Ty Lee blushes, and not just from the heat.

"I want to have a baby. A royal baby. It's what I wed Azula for, isn't it?" she says. "I want it so much. I have a lot of good reasons like—"

He holds up a hand to silence her. The Fire Lord does not have the patience to listen to this.

"I see no reason not to grant that request," he says.

Ty Lee glows. He wonders about her sometimes – wonders if she is a concealed threat – but she is very loyal to Azula.

Yet, he doubts she has spoken to his daughter about this request.

* * *

Katara does not know what to do about Ozai's demand. She would rather be Azula's slave than Azula's bride. The princess already has two of those; she has no need for a third.

She _does _know her beliefs about their relationship haven't been entirely true. She figured that out when she accidentally walked in on Mai and Ty Lee making out. They certainly were heated and into each other without Azula anywhere near them.

Is there really a love like that? Love cannot exist between more than two people, in Katara's opinion.

It simply cannot.

That must be some kind of law of nature, right?

* * *

Azula is tired. Ty Lee braids her hair as Azula tries to figure out why Ty Lee is so happy. While Ty Lee is _always _cheery, she seems more so than usual. Mai has a book balanced on her knee across the room, paying them no mind.

Ty Lee cannot mask her feelings about Azula.

She does not want to; she never has wanted to hide how much she loves the woman who might as well be the sun in the sky.

That beautiful, cold, crisp night, she runs her fingers under Azula's robe, gently untying it with one motion. The princess has such beautiful skin, despite the bruises and thin layer of sweat. Ty Lee kisses her right breast and takes her nipple in her mouth. Azula does not react as much as Ty Lee had hoped, but she does smile faintly.

Ty Lee rises slightly and kisses her wife on the lips. She then kisses her neck, her collarbone, her chin, her lips…

Azula holds one breathless kiss with her nails digging into the back of Ty Lee's neck, before guiding Ty Lee down. Ty Lee kisses her navel, causing a very slight buck of her hips that inspires Ty Lee to continue. Ty Lee kisses lower until her lips are somewhere that makes Azula's toes curl.

Ty Lee is all that matters to Azula for several long minutes.


End file.
